Silver Alert

November 1, 2022

In perennial New York Times best-selling Deveraux's My Heart Will Find You, a young woman stranded in Kansas City by the pandemic agrees to serve as caretaker for an isolated older man and finds a book in his library that leads to vibrant dreams of a life and love in the 1870s that could be real (125,000-copy first printing). Gray's Life and Other Love Songs, which tracks a Black family from the Great Migration to 1990s New York, opens with Ozro Armstead taking a walk on his 37th birthday when he inexplicably vanishes; following the LibraryReads pick The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls (60,000-copy first printing). Henry features the couple Harriet and Wyn, who aren't in a Happy Place; they have reluctantly broken up but agree to the pretense that they are still together for their annual getaway with best friends (750,000-copy first printing). Caterer Emma Jansen returns to the bulldozer-ready Long Island estate where she grew up as the estate manager's daughter and encounters both the family's grandson, whom she loved, and chauffeur's son Leo, her best buddy; just like Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, hence Janowitz's title, The Audrey Hepburn Estate (75,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Beloved author McCall Smith set out to solve The Enigma of Garlic as he revisits the residents of 44 Scotland Street, Edinburgh, with shenanigans set off by excitement over Big Lou and Fat Bob's wedding. Novak convenes three friends at The Seaside Library 20 years after a tragedy altered their lives--but not, it seems, their rediscovered commitment to one another (100,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). Susan Patterson (Big Words for Little Geniuses) and lyricist/librettist DiLallo are joined by mega-best-selling James Patterson with Things I Wish I Told My Mother, the story of a mother and daughter opening up to each other on a Paris vacation (150,000-copy first printing). Celebrated Southern author Smith returns with Silver Alert, featuring a curmudgeonly older man who refuses to let his life dim, instead setting off on a last glorious journey up the Florida Keys with a younger friend bearing secrets of her own (40,000-copy first printing). After the beloved best sellers Kitchens of the Great Midwest and The Lager Queen of Minnesota, Stradal stays Midwestern culinary with Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, featuring husband-and-wife Ned and Mariel Praeger and the crises they face regarding the Minnesota family restaurant businesses each has inherited (100,000-copy first printing).

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2023
Two unlikely traveling companions unite for a life-affirming joyride. When wealthy septuagenarian businessman Herbert Atlas takes Susan Summerville, an elegant Palm Beach art gallery owner 13 years his junior, as his third wife, he never dreams he'll end up as her caregiver in their elegant Key West home after she sinks into the impenetrable fog of early onset Alzheimer's disease. Now 83, with his body ravaged by advanced prostate cancer and an array of other ailments, the irascible Herb pushes back against his children's plan to move him and Susan to a continuing care facility to live out their final days. Herb's ally in his fight to cling to the shards that remain of his broken former life is Renee Martin, a young aesthetician hired to care for Susan's nails, who becomes an inadvertent art therapist for her client. But Renee, whose real name is Deirdre June "Dee Dee" Mullins and who has migrated to Florida from the mountains of North Carolina, has a dark past she's trying, with only intermittent success, to fend off in the present. She thinks she's done that when she meets Willie, an aspiring poet who lives in a ramshackle old house, but he's battling his own demons that complicate their romantic relationship. Shifting between third-person narration and Dee Dee's affecting voice, Smith skillfully pivots from wry humor to real tenderness toward her quirkily engaging characters. The crisis over Herb and Susan's move climaxes in a wild ride in Herb's canary yellow Porsche Carrera, sparking the titular alert, as he and Dee Dee speed through the Florida Keys, soaking up their omnipresent beauty and kitschiness, on their way to Disney World, where Dee Dee hopes to realize her dream of meeting the Disney princesses. Beneath the novel's occasionally frothy surface beats a compassionate, generous heart. A warmhearted story of improbably matched characters trying to reclaim their lives.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2023
As his elderly wife, Susan, descends further into dementia, Herb realizes he's no spring chicken anymore either. Once an imposing man with plentiful appetites for food, wine, and women, Herb is continually surprised to find his body disappointing him in new ways. But he still appreciates the spark of human connection and finds beauty in the smallest things. When Dee Dee, one of Susan's friendliest carers, turns out to have a few secrets of her own, Herb doesn't rush to judgment. Instead, the pair strikes up an unlikely friendship. But before they acquiesce to their quickly-changing stations in life, Herb and Dee Dee decide to take one last shot at paving their own way. Smith (Dimestore, 2016) gives Herb and Dee Dee a vast amount of agency and backstory in this slim novel, letting the reader gradually come to terms with each character's history and the reality of what's ahead. Likely to resonate with fans of Marian Keyes, Lynda Rutledge, and Andrew J. Graff, Smith's novel is an incisive and heartwarming exploration of life's fragile phases.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 20, 2023
Smith (Blue Marlin) offers a nimble if slow-moving twist on the odd couple trope. Herbert “Herb” Atlas, 83, cares for his third wife, Susan, 70, who gave him a “whole new life” when they married 12 years earlier but is now stricken with dementia. Their children insist on round-the-clock care for Susan at their house in Key West, but Susan resists attention from anyone but her nail technician, Renee Martin. Soon, Renee is a fixture in the Atlas household, and it turns out her real name is Deidre “Dee Dee” June Mullins, and she’s a North Carolina transplant who survived sex trafficking. When Herb receives a diagnosis of stage IV prostate cancer, Herb’s kids stage an intervention, hoping to put Herb and Susan into a nursing home. Meanwhile, Dee Dee is unexpectedly pregnant from a man who has no plans to have a family, and with Herb determined not to be locked down, the two set off for an adventure in his yellow Porsche. Though the road trip comes a bit late, there’s plenty of charm to the two main characters, one trying to outrun her past and the other trying to outrun his future. For patient readers, this is a treat. Agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff & Verrill Literary Agents.

March 1, 2023

A story told from different perspectives, this latest from Smith (Dimestore; The Last Girls) brings together two very different characters, Dee Dee and Herb, on a strange journey through Florida. Dee Dee (under an assumed name) is hired by Herb Atlas, a wealthy man in Key West, to give pedicures to his wife Susan, who has Alzheimer's. Dee Dee seems to connect with Susan in a way that others can't. Meanwhile, Herb finds out about a cancer diagnosis and grapples with his own failing health. When his adult children arrive and insist on his checking into an assisted living place with his wife, Dee Dee shows up to say her goodbyes--only to end up on the road with Herb for one final jaunt in his Porsche. What was supposed to be a little ride around town turns into a road trip to Disney World, a place Dee Dee has always wanted to visit. The plot is told through the points of view of Dee Dee and Herb, and readers never quite know what will happen next to the unlikely companions. VERDICT Readers who love a quirky story filled with beguiling characters will enjoy Smith's road-trip novel.--Lisa Wieczorek

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.