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  3. PEOPLE Picks the Best New Books of the Week

PEOPLE Picks the Best New Books of the Week

From a haunting psychological thriller to Hunter Biden’s powerful memoir, here are our picks to read right now. Edited by Kim Hubbard

Updated March 29, 2021 05:43 PM
Products in this story are independently selected and featured editorially. If you make a purchase using these links we may earn commission.
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When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain

When the Stars Go Dark Paula McLain
Credit: Ballantine Books

Anna Hart is a missing-persons detective who is on the run herself. When an intolerable tragedy shatters her family, she flees to her hometown of Mendocino — where she immediately becomes obsessed with the hunt for a missing girl. A total departure for the author of The Paris Wife, McLain’s emotionally intense and exceptionally well-written thriller entwines its fictional crime with real cases — including Polly Klaas’s 1993 kidnapping — and is enriched by her own experiences as a survivor of trauma. — Marion Winik

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Good Company by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

Good Company Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
Credit: Ecco

Flora and Julian have the perfect L.A. life: enviably happy marriage ("Florian"!), charming daughter, successful TV careers. Then, looking through a drawer, Flora finds Julian’s wedding ring — supposedly lost years ago while he was swimming. Sweeney takes us on Flora’s heartfelt search for truth and a relationship far deeper than good looks. — Anne Leslie

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Beautiful Things by Hunter Biden

Beautiful Things Hunter Biden
Credit: Gallery Books

From his first drink at age 8 to living with a homeless addict at 46 and cooking his own crack at 48, the President’s son vividly depicts a descent into addiction far darker than anything Donald Trump could have envisioned when he taunted all through 2020, "Where’s Hunter??" A gritty and shocking Biden family portrait that proves you never really know the burdens another person carries. — Sandra Sobieraj Westfall

Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 

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Your Time to Thrive by Marina Khidekel

Your Time to Thrive End Burnout, Increase Well-being, and Unlock Your Full Potential with the New Science of Microsteps Marina Khidekel
Credit: Hachette Go

From the head of content development at Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, advice on how to do just that using "microsteps" to improve sleep and nutrition, build better relationships, unplug and recharge, and more. — Kim Hubbard

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Red Island House by Andrea Lee

book reviews
Credit: Scribner

When Shay, an African American academic studying abroad, marries Senna, an Italian businessman, he builds her a villa on the island of Madagascar as a wedding present. There they will return every year to spend holidays among a kaleidoscopic cast of locals, expatriates and travelers. This transporting history of their imperfect marriage braids together dramatic episodes, island history and fable, all infused with Lee’s sharp insights into human nature. — Marion Winik

Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 

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Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

book reviews
Credit: Flatiron Books

A multigenerational novel of women struggling for safety and fortitude, from Maria Isabel rolling cigars in 19th-century Cuba to her great-great-granddaughter selling makeup at a Miami store and thinking about her next fix. Unsparing yet hopeful, this is an impressive debut. — Mary Pols

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The Beauty of Living Twice by Sharon Stone

book reviews
Credit: Knopf

In 2001 Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone had a massive stroke, losing her career, family finances and her identity. Now 63, she has recovered and found deeper meaning: healing a traumatic past, advocating for brain health and, with this memoir, showing us it’s never too late for transformation. — Caroline Leavitt

Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org 

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Festival Days by Jo Ann Beard

book reviews
Credit: Little, Brown and Company

Like a hot water bottle for grief, these honest, beautiful essays and stories take on the death of a beloved animal, a friend’s illness, getting dumped by a partner and other tragedies few escape. Two unforgettable pieces spotlight a man who escaped a deadly fire and a woman’s long, slow dance with cancer. They’re intimate, intelligent, intense — and ultimately comforting. "Every moment of your life," Beard reminds us, "brings you to the moment you’re experiencing now. And now. And now." — Marion Winik

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Plunder by Menachem Kaiser

book reviews
Credit: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

When Kaiser left Toronto for Poland "on a mission of memory" to reclaim the home his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, grew up in, he couldn’t predict what he would find. His rabbit-hole quest leads to wild encounters with Nazi treasure hunters, a lawyer named Killer and plenty of questions. Fascinating. — Richard Eisenberg

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Are We There Yet? by Kathleen West

book reviews
Credit: Berkley

Multiple perspectives, both adult and tween, enrich this novel about the dramas of middle school. Centered on Alice Sullivan, a suburban mom who’s juggling work, kids — and family secrets — it’s a breezy yet affecting read filled with struggle and hope. — Rennie Dyball

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How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
Credit: Random House

When children begin dying in an African village devastated by an American oil company, the local madman leads a revolt that shapes villagers’ lives for generations to come. The fallout is told from the perspective of the affected children, most of all Thula, a girl who goes off to school in the U.S. and returns to ignite a battle against her country’s dictatorship. Mbue (Behold the Dreamers) has written a brilliant exploration of modern colonialism and capitalism — and the fight for justice. — Claire Martin

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Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews
Credit: Little, Brown and Company

When her #metoo complaint backfires, jobless Florence gets an offer to be personal assistant to "Maud Dixon" — a popular novelist whose real identity is known only to her agent. Dark comedy meets twisty thriller when "Maud" and Florence head to Morocco to research a novel. Couldn’t be more fun. — Marion Winik

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What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster

What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster
Credit: Grand Central Publishing

Coster weaves together two seemingly disparate fractured families in a saga that begins with a newly integrated southern high school and addresses racism, colorism, drug addiction and homophobia over decades. The complex characters will stay with you — maybe even change you. — Benilde Little

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We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
Credit: Henry Holt and Co.

Cape Haven, Calif., is a pretty town of broken souls. Its chief cop clings to the past as his body fails. A drunk former beauty can barely care for the kids she loves, and her fierce 13-year-old daughter Duchess Day Radley imagines herself an outlaw willing to do anything to defend her little brother. A murder roils the town, setting in motion an intriguing mystery. But what lingers after the scores are settled is Duchess, in all her defiant, heartbreaking glory. — Ellen Shapiro

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The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende

The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende
Credit: Ballantine Books

Part memoir, part feminist treatise, Allende’s latest rejects the "machismo" she says has always surrounded her. Filled with astute observations about the struggles of women everywhere, it also celebrates female sensuality, aging and what it means to love. — Sam Gillette

Buy It: Amazon, Bookshop.org

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Good Eggs by Rebecca Hardiman

Good Eggs by Rebecca Hardiman
Credit: Atria Books

Kooky Irish octogenarian Millie is saddled with a home caregiver to help curtail her shoplifting habit just as her hell-raising granddaughter is banished to a boarding school. Each falls prey to a questionable new friend, careening toward calamity — and each other. A witty, exuberant debut. — Claire Martin

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Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

klara and the sun by kazuo ishiguro

Klara’s story begins in the display window of a store that sells "Artificial Friends" for the children of a future world whose disturbing features are slowly revealed in this utterly captivating fable. Klara, surely the smartest and sweetest robot in all of literature, studies the people around her with an intelligence that sheds light on our deepest questions. What is love? What makes us human? Is there a God? Nobel Prize winner Ishiguro spins a tale to delight all ages. — Marion Winik

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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

infinite country by patricia engel

Beginning with teenage Talia escaping a Colombian correctional facility to join her family in America, Engel movingly captures the shadow lives of undocumented migrants. Weaving Andean myths with the cold realities of dislocation and "the phantom pain of a lost homeland," this is a profound, beautiful novel. — Ellen Shapiro

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Come Fly the World by Julia Cooke

come fly the world by julia cooke

In the 1960s and '70s, Pan Am stewardesses changed a sexualized job requiring weigh-ins and retirement at 26 into a forum for serious work. They became ambassadors, transported traumatized soldiers, rescued Vietnamese children in Operation Babylift. A fascinating history of a bygone era. — Caroline Leavitt

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Those Who Are Saved by Alexis Landau

those who are saved by alexis landau

As the Nazis overwhelm France, Vera and Max, Russian Jews in exile, must report for internment. Fearing the worst, they escape from the camp, leaving their daughter Lucie with her nanny. She’ll be safely hidden — or so they believe. Settled in Los Angeles, Vera is consumed by guilt and loss that tear at her marriage, and she aches to return to Lucie after the war’s end. Sweeping and lyrical, this novel is a gripping story of a mother’s unyielding love. —Helen Rogan

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Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

sorrow and bliss by meg mason

Martha Friel, the narrator of this improbably charming novel about mental illness, will have you chortling and reading lines aloud. Martha is almost 40, and nothing — not the love of her husband, not a parade of doctors and meds — has ever stopped the pain. Fortunately, that’s just the beginning of this story. —Marion Winik

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The Officer’s Daughter by Elle Johnson

the officers daughter by Elle Johnson

Decades after her cousin Karen is murdered, Johnson — a crime-show writer — wrestles with whether to help free Karen’s killer. To decide, she investigates what really happened and painful truths about her dad, a parole officer. A powerful memoir painting a portrait of one family’s “grief that would never end.” —Richard Eisenberg

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Send for Me by Lauren Fox

send for me by lauren fox

After fleeing Nazi Germany, Fox’s grandmother received increasingly desperate letters from her mother back home. Using snippets from those actual missives, this incandescent novel tells the story of three generations of women connected by sacrifice, courage, the comforting aroma of baked goods and the indelible impact of words on a page. Send for Me reads like a memoir but has the kind of intimate detail born in the imagination of a novelist at the top of her game. —Kim Hubbard

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All Girls by Emily Layden

all girls by emily layden

Arriving at their exclusive prep school in August, students pass by signs announcing "a rapist works here." Is it true? The #metoo-era mystery permeates every aspect of the year as Layden's novel serves up a full menu of girls, from gossips to strivers, legacies to loners, all with secrets of their own. —Mary Pols

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The Smash-Up by Ali Benjamin

the smash up by ali benjamin

Borrow names and plot elements from Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome. Satirize progressive parenting and education à la Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Then light it all up with the feminist fire ignited by the Brett Kavanaugh hearings — and what do you get? A fun, timely novel that’s unexpectedly full of hope. —Marion Winik

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    1 of 25 When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain
    2 of 25 Good Company by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
    3 of 25 Beautiful Things by Hunter Biden
    4 of 25 Your Time to Thrive by Marina Khidekel
    5 of 25 Red Island House by Andrea Lee
    6 of 25 Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
    7 of 25 The Beauty of Living Twice by Sharon Stone
    8 of 25 Festival Days by Jo Ann Beard
    9 of 25 Plunder by Menachem Kaiser
    10 of 25 Are We There Yet? by Kathleen West
    11 of 25 How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
    12 of 25 Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews
    13 of 25 What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster
    14 of 25 We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
    15 of 25 The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende
    16 of 25 Good Eggs by Rebecca Hardiman
    17 of 25 Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
    18 of 25 Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
    19 of 25 Come Fly the World by Julia Cooke
    20 of 25 Those Who Are Saved by Alexis Landau
    21 of 25 Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
    22 of 25 The Officer’s Daughter by Elle Johnson
    23 of 25 Send for Me by Lauren Fox
    24 of 25 All Girls by Emily Layden
    25 of 25 The Smash-Up by Ali Benjamin

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