Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking by Raquel V. Reyes

It’s time for a savory soirée—but something sinister is stewing—in Raquel V. Reyes’s second delightful Caribbean Kitchen mystery, perfectly delicious for fans of Mia P. Manansala.

Fall festivities are underway in Coral Shores, Miami. Cuban-American cooking show star Miriam Quiñones-Smith wakes up to find a corpse in her front yard. The body by the fake tombstone is the woman that was kicked out of the school’s Fall Festival the day before.

Miriam’s luck does not improve. Her passive-aggressive mother-in-law puts her in charge of the Women’s Club annual gala. But this year, it’s not canapes and waltzes. Miriam and her girlfriends-squad opt for fun and flavor. They want to spice it up with Caribbean food trucks and a calypso band. While making plans at the country club, they hear a volatile argument between the new head chef and the club’s manager. Not long after, the chef swan dives to his death at the bottom of the grand staircase.

Was it an accident? Or was it Beverly, the sous chef, who is furious after being passed over for the job? Or maybe it was his ex-girlfriend, Anastasia? 

Add two possible poisonings to the mix and Miriam is worried the food truck fun is going to be a major crash. As the clock ticks down and the body count goes up, Miriam’s life is put in jeopardy. Will she connect the dots or die in the deep freeze? Foodies and mystery lovers alike will savor the denouement as the truth is laid bare in this simmering stew of rage, retribution, and murder.

Homebound by Vanessa A. Bee

“What emerges is a rich and enthralling story of finding oneself outside of the bounds of borders and beliefs. This offers radiant hope in the face of darkness.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Bee’s lyrical, emotive prose takes readers through her life with an intimacy that draws and keeps them close. . . . [Home Bound will] appeal to a variety of reader, challenging singular beliefs of what it means to be a daughter, sister, lover, wife, lawyer, and mother.” —Library Journal, starred review

In this singular and intimate memoir of identity and discovery, Vanessa A. Bee explores the way we define “home” and “belonging” — from her birth in Yaoundé, Cameroon, to her adoption by her aunt and her aunt’s white French husband, to experiencing housing insecurity in Europe and her eventual immigration to the US. After her parents’ divorce, Vanessa traveled with her mother to Lyon and later to London, eventually settling in Reno, Nevada, as a teenager, right around the financial crisis and the collapse of the housing market. At twenty, still a practicing evangelical Christian and newly married, Vanessa applied to and was accepted by Harvard Law School, where she was one of the youngest members of her class. There, she forged a new belief system, divorced her husband, left the church, and, inspired by her tumultuous childhood, pursued a career in economic justice upon graduation.

Vanessa’s adoptive, multiracial, multilingual, multinational, and transcontinental upbringing has caused her to grapple for years with foundational questions such as: What is home? Is it the country we’re born in, the body we possess, or the name we were given and that identifies us? Is it the house we remember most fondly, the social status assigned to us, or the ideology we forge? What defines us and makes us uniquely who we are?

Organized unconventionally around her own dictionary-style definitions of the word “home,” Vanessa tackles these timeless questions thematically and unpacks the many layers that contribute to and condition our understanding of ourselves and of our place in the world.

Author Visit to HOB!

S.A. Rodriguez at HOB
Friday, November 4th 2022 @ 10am

On Friday, 11/4 author S.A. Rodriquez will visit HOB to discuss her book Treasure Tracks with students.

Order your copy of Treasure Tracks here by Tuesday November 1st (11:49pm ET) to have your copy available for the author to sign at the event at HOB on the 4th. (Select “in-store pick up” and we will deliver to the school the day of the event). Use coupon code HOB15 to save 15%.

Orders received after 11/1 will be delivered to the school before Thanksgiving break.

To purchase a copy of the book at the event bring cash or check (payable to Books & Books) for $20, includes tax.

Twelve-year-old Fernando “Fin” joins his grandfather on a secret quest to find a long-lost treasure swept to sea. But when their first mission takes a near-deadly turn, leaving his abuelo weak and unable to speak, Fin’s left to navigate the hunt alone. Well, not exactly alone—his boring, totally unadventurous dad agrees to help out. With danger lurking at every turn, Fin dives into the mission in order to save Abuelo’s life. But between Dad’s constant worrying, unwanted diving babysitters, and harrowing encounters in the deep sea, the boy finds himself in a race against time to locate the treasure. If he can’t succeed? He fears he might lose Abuelo for good.

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

The Reese’s Book Club October Pick!

From the #1 bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, comes one of the most highly anticipated books of the year – the inspiring new novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.


“It’s impossible not to be moved.” —Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review

“Riveting, tender, and timely.” —People, Book of the Week

“Thought-provoking, heart-wrenching…I was so invested in the future of this mother and son, and I can’t wait to hear what you think of this deeply suspenseful story!” – Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club October ’22 Pick)

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.

Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.

Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s a story about the power—and limitations—of art to create change, the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and how any of us can survive a broken world with our hearts intact.

Seeing Like an Artist by Lincoln Perry

Learn to see art as an artist does. Discover how a painting’s composition and content or a sculpture’s spatial structure influence the experience of what you’re seeing. With an artist as your guide, viewing art becomes a powerfully enriching experience that will stay in your mind long after you’ve left a museum.

A visit to view art can be overwhelming, exhausting, and unrewarding. Lincoln Perry wants to change that. In fifteen essays–each framed around a specific theme–he provides new ways of seeing and appreciating art.

Drawing heavily on examples from the European traditions of art, Perry aims to overturn assumptions and asks readers to re-think artistic prejudices while rebuilding new preferences.

Included are essays on how artists “read” paintings, how scale and format influence viewers, how to engage with sculptures and murals, as well as guides to some of the great museums and churches of Europe.

Seeing Like an Artist is for any artist, art-lover, or museumgoer who wants to grow their appreciation for the art of others.

The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken

A Most Anticipated Book of Fall from: Austin-American Statesman * BookPage * Book Riot * Boston Globe * Entertainment Weekly * LitHub* Los Angeles Times * The Millions * Philadelphia Inquirer * Publishers Weekly * St. Louis Post Dispatch * Town & Country

A taut, groundbreaking new novel from bestselling and award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken, about a writer’s relationship with her larger-than-life mother—and about the very nature of writing, memory, and art

Ten months after her mother’s death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book takes a trip to London. The city was a favorite of her mother’s, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself reflecting on her mother’s life and their relationship. Thoughts of the past meld with questions of the future: Back in New England, the family home is now up for sale, its considerable contents already winnowed.

The woman, a writer, recalls all that made her complicated mother extraordinary—her brilliant wit, her generosity, her unbelievable obstinacy, her sheer will in seizing life despite physical difficulties—and finds herself wondering how her mother had endured. Even though she wants to respect her mother’s nearly pathological sense of privacy, the woman must come to terms with whether making a chronicle of this remarkable life constitutes an act of love or betrayal.

The Hero of This Book  is a searing examination of grief and renewal, and of a deeply felt relationship between a child and her parents. What begins as a question of filial devotion ultimately becomes a lesson in what it means to write. At once comic and heartbreaking, with prose that delights at every turn, this is a novel of such piercing love and tenderness that we are reminded that art is what remains when all else falls away.

Confidence Man by Maggie Haberman

“This is the book Trump fears most.” – Axios

Confidence Man [is] Maggie Haberman’s much anticipated biography of the president she followed more assiduously than any other journalist. No doubt, there are revelations aplenty here. But this is a book more notable for the quality of its observations about Trump’s character than for its newsbreaks. It will be a primary source about the most vexing president in American history for years to come.” – Joe Klein, The New York Times

From the Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times reporter who has defined Donald J. Trump’s presidency like no other journalist, Confidence Man is a magnificent and disturbing reckoning that chronicles his life and its meaning from his rise in New York City to his tortured post-presidency.

Few journalists working today have covered Donald Trump more extensively than Maggie Haberman. And few understand him and his motivations better. Now, demonstrating her majestic command of this story, Haberman reveals in full the depth of her understanding of the 45th president himself, and of what the Trump phenomenon means.

Interviews with hundreds of sources and numerous interviews over the years with Trump himself portray a complicated and often contradictory historical figure. Capable of kindness but relying on casual cruelty as it suits his purposes.  Pugnacious. Insecure. Lonely. Vindictive. Menacing. Smarter than his critics contend and colder and more calculating than his allies believe. A man who embedded himself in popular culture, galvanizing support for a run for high office that he began preliminary spadework for 30 years ago, to ultimately become a president who pushed American democracy to the brink.

The through-line of Trump’s life and his presidency is the enduring question of what is in it for him or what he needs to say to survive short increments of time in the pursuit of his own interests.    

Confidence Man is also, inevitably, about the world thatproduced such a singular character, giving rise to his career and becoming his first stage. It is also about a series of relentlessly transactional relationships. The ones that shaped him most were with girlfriends and wives, with Roy Cohn, with George Steinbrenner, with Mike Tyson and Don King and Roger Stone, with city and state politicians like Robert Morgenthau and Rudy Giuliani, with business partners, with prosecutors, with the media, and with the employees who toiled inside what they commonly called amongst themselves the “Trump Disorganization.”  

That world informed the one that Trump tried to recreate while in the White House. All of Trump’s behavior as President had echoes in what came before.  In this revelatory and newsmaking book, Haberman brings together the events of his life into a single mesmerizing work. It is the definitive account of one of the most norms-shattering and consequential eras in American political history.

Vote for the Winners in our Art Contest

Through Oct. 12, vote in store or online for the winners in our 6th annual Art Contest. The art showcases a wide range of style and approaches, all on a distinctive 4-inch by 12-inch canvas, the same shape as the store bookmarks that will eventually feature the winning art.

Vote online at https://booksandbookskw.com/vote-for-your-favorites-in-our-summer-art-contest

This year the winners will be selected in two categories – the most online votes and the most in-store votes. All contestants are eligible for the grand prize. One grand prize winner will appear on a special edition bookmark, have their canvas show in the bookstore through the end of the year and receive a $25 Art Supply gift card from Books & Books.

Want a great piece of art with a cool backstory? Some of the canvases are available for purchase. Contact us if you’d like more information about buying one.

Last year’s winners

October Staff Pick – Bitch: On the Female of the Species

Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke (Basic Books), picked by bookseller Riona Jean

Do you love weird animal facts? Do you love academia? Do you love sticking it to the patriarchy?

This book boasts all three with panache and grace.

Cooke is an accomplished zoologist who interviews a bevy of scientists across the globe in order to expose the glaring gap in knowledge about the female of any species (from insects to mammals to birds). Her writing is feisty, fierce, and witty without being grandiose or over-embellishing facts.

Learn about murderous meerkats, polyamorous birds, and frisky bonobos, all while discovering how scientific studies contradicting the patriarchy have been dismissed, hidden, or unfunded. I can’t get this book into your paws fast enough!

~ Riona Jean

Riona enjoyed this book as an audiobook (read by the author). Get it from our audiobook partner, Libro.fm. Bitch: On the Female of the Species (audiobook)