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Editorial Content for Upward Bound

Teaser

UPWARD BOUND is a wondrous, deeply affecting portrait of the interlocking lives at an adult day care center in Southern California, depicting an often overlooked community with extraordinary wit and grace. 

Promo

UPWARD BOUND is a wondrous, deeply affecting portrait of the interlocking lives at an adult day care center in Southern California, depicting an often overlooked community with extraordinary wit and grace. 

About the Book

A wondrous, deeply affecting portrait of the interlocking lives at an adult day care center in Southern California, depicting an often overlooked community with extraordinary wit and grace --- “an explosive novel” (Ron Charles) by a major new literary voice hailed as a “groundbreaking debut novelist” (Publishers Weekly).

Upward Bound is not a place anyone dreams of spending their days. The dreary adult daycare center for Los Angeles’s disabled community is, for many of its clients and staff, a place of last resort. This includes Carlos, a young aide who lost his mother as a boy and now works there alongside his beloved sister, Mariana; Jorge, the gentle nonspeaking giant whom Carlos seeks to befriend (and prevent from escaping); and Tom, a beautiful young man with cerebral palsy who pines for Ann, the summer lifeguard at the center’s pool who feels out of her depth. Then there’s Dave, Upward Bound’s director, who came to L.A. to pursue an acting career but now channels his passion into staging an overly ambitious holiday show starring the center’s irrepressible clients.

Framing these intertwined narratives --- and connecting them in surprising, shattering ways --- is the riveting and sometimes ironic testimony of Walter, a recent community college graduate who, after a family tragedy, must return to the company of his disabled peers.

In UPWARD BOUND, Woody Brown has created an indelible, authentic and profoundly moving group portrait of autism and other disabilities, all illuminated by his empathy, sly sense of humor, and enormous gifts as a novelist. With remarkable sophistication, insight and creativity, Brown depicts a community too often invisible in literature and society.

Filled with characters you won’t soon forget, UPWARD BOUND will inspire and touch you, teaching you as much about yourself as the tender, miraculous world behind the center’s doors.

Editorial Content for Yesteryear

Book

Teaser

A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855. In this sensational debut novel, she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister.

Promo

A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855. In this sensational debut novel, she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister.

About the Book

A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855. In this sensational debut novel, she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister.

My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers --- all eight million of them --- don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal --- and just so happens to be building an empire from it.

Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children --- they’re all familiar, but something is off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday, Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, YESTERYEAR is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith and the grand performance of womanhood.

April 28, 2026

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of April 27th and May 4th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our 21st annual Mother's Day contest. From now through Monday, May 11th at noon ET, readers can enter to win one of our five prize packages, which includes five fabulous titles that we think moms will love.

The prize books are THE CALAMITY CLUB by Kathryn Stockett (an upcoming Bookreporter.com Bets On selection), HARBOR POINTE: A Hope Harbor Novel by Irene Hannon, LITTLE WONDER by Sophie Chen Keller, THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOOK CLUB by Susan Patterson and James Patterson, and THE MOUNTAINS WE CALL HOME: The Book Woman's Legacy by Kim Michele Richardson.

Lisa Ridzen Book Group Event

Lisa Ridzen Book Group Event

Xochitl Gonzalez, author of Last Night in Brooklyn

Spring, 2007. Alicia Canales Forten is in a long-distance relationship, living at home with her mother’s beliefs, and saving up for her wedding to a future doctor. But after Alicia ventures out one night in the neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, she finds herself lured by the siren song of youth and possibility that the striving crowd of creatives holds, and she moves in. No one embodies this milieu more than La Garza, a larger-than-life, up-and-coming fashion designer whose epic house parties fuel neighborhood lore. La Garza’s life, observed by Alicia from her apartment across the street, seems to hold the allure and fearlessness that Alicia has never dared to imagine for herself. But when Alicia’s wealthy banker cousin moves to the neighborhood, she finds herself increasingly drawn into both his and La Garza’s precarious lives.

Jane Smiley, author of Lidie: The Further Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

Christmas, 1857. America's future is precarious; civil war looms on the horizon. After her abolitionist husband is murdered in the lawless Kansas Territory, Lidie Newton returns, in mourning, to her hometown of Quincy, Illinois. But her sisters have little comfort to offer, and Lidie is haunted by the memories of her failures --- until she takes an interest in her niece, Annie. Annie becomes an actress at the local theater, and when she is offered the opportunity to perform abroad, she decides to run away. But travel is dangerous for a young unmarried woman, so Lidie, armed with her pistol and her wit, goes with her. The two women embark on a perilous journey across the Atlantic. Once they arrive in Liverpool, they vanish into new roles in the household of Annie's benefactor, Mr. Mallory Cunningham. But will either of them be content with her new lot in life?

Kim Michele Richardson, author of The Mountains We Call Home: The Book Woman's Legacy

In this stand-alone and companion novel to the Book Woman of Troublesome Creek series, our heroine for the ages, legendary book woman Cussy Lovett, returns home. A powerful testament of strength, survival and the magic of the printed word, THE MOUNTAINS WE CALL HOME is wrapped into a vivid portrait of Kentucky life: examining incarceration and criminalization, exploring the effects on the poor and powerless, and tracing the societal consequences of fractured family bonds, along with nostalgic glimpses of a bustling, multifaceted Louisville, and heartwarming portraits of reading efforts in every facet of life.

Sally Hepworth, author of Mad Mabel

Meet Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick: 81 years old, gloriously grumpy, fiercely independent, and never without a hot cup of tea --- or a cutting remark. She minds her own business in her quiet Melbourne suburb, until a neighbor turns up dead and the whispers start flying. Because Elsie hasn’t always been Elsie. Once upon a headline, she was Mad Mabel Waller --- Australia’s youngest convicted murderer. But was she really mad, or just misunderstood? Either way, she’s kept her secret buried for decades. Enter seven-year-old Persephone, a relentless little chatterbox who has just moved in across the road; Joan, who appears to have it in for Elsie; and a healthy dose of public interest. So Mabel does what she’s always done best --- she takes matters into her own hands.

Editorial Content for Paradox

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

I have seen PARADOX listed as a technothriller, but I feel this classification is quite limiting. In fact, there are so many genres coursing through the pages here that the novel may be impossible to label or define. Read More

Teaser

When a reclusive man is found dead under grisly circumstances in the Colorado wilderness, CBI Agent Frankie Cash and Eagle County Sheriff Jim Colcord, whom we met in EXTINCTION, team up again on their most enigmatic and dangerous case yet. Their investigation uncovers a trail of bizarre killings, baffling money transfers, and a fanatical secret society. And all the while, the resurrected Neanderthals, who vanished into the Colorado mountains, seem to be biding their time for something…spectacular.

Promo

When a reclusive man is found dead under grisly circumstances in the Colorado wilderness, CBI Agent Frankie Cash and Eagle County Sheriff Jim Colcord, whom we met in EXTINCTION, team up again on their most enigmatic and dangerous case yet. Their investigation uncovers a trail of bizarre killings, baffling money transfers, and a fanatical secret society. And all the while, the resurrected Neanderthals, who vanished into the Colorado mountains, seem to be biding their time for something…spectacular.

About the Book

The new powerhouse team of Douglas Preston and Aletheia Preston are joining together to "enter the world" of the New York Times bestselling EXTINCTION.

One of the holiest relics in Christendom, inexplicably defaced.

A paranoid old prospector, ritualistically murdered.

A controversial exobiologist, tortured and dismembered.

When a reclusive man is found dead under grisly circumstances in the Colorado wilderness, CBI Agent Frankie Cash and Eagle County Sheriff Jim Colcord, whom we met in the New York Times bestseller EXTINCTION, team up again on their most enigmatic and dangerous case yet. Their investigation uncovers a trail of bizarre killings, baffling money transfers, and a fanatical secret society.

And all the while, the resurrected Neanderthals, who vanished into the Colorado mountains, seem to be biding their time for something…spectacular.

Audiobook available, read by Stephanie Németh-Parker