Little, Brown and Company Spring/Summer '12

THE BOOK OF MADNESS AND CURES

APRIL 2012 HARDCOVER

The Book of Madness and Cures: A Novel
Regina O’Melveny
978-0-316-19583-6, $25.99

A brilliant debut about a woman doctor in Renaissance Venice, forced to cross Europe in search of her father.

Gabriella Mondini is a rarity in 16th century Venice: a woman who practices medicine. Her father, a renowned physician, has provided her entrée into this all-male profession, and inspired in her a shared mission to understand the secrets of the human body.

Then her father disappears and Gabriella faces a crisis: she is no longer permitted to treat her patients, women who need her desperately, without her father’s patronage. She sets out across Europe to find where—and why—he has gone.

Following clues from his occasional enigmatic letters, Gabriella crosses Switzerland, Germany, and France, entering strange and forbidding cities. She travels to Scotland, the Netherlands, and finally to Morocco.

In each new land she probes the mystery of her father’s flight, and opens new mysteries of her own. Not just mysteries of ailments and treatments, but ultimate mysteries of mortality, love, and the timeless human spirit.

Filled with medical lore and sensuous, vivid details of Renaissance life, The Book of Madness and Cures is an intoxicating and unforgettable debut.

Regina O’Melveny’s poetry has been published widely in literary journals, garnering several prizes. She grew up at the edge of pungent chaparral in La Mesa, California, and currently resides further north in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Publicity tour: Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Publicity contact: Carolyn O’Keefe, carolyn.okeefe@hbgusa.com

THE LIFEBOAT

APRIL 2012 HARDCOVER

The Lifeboat: A Novel
Charlotte Rogan
978-0-316-18590-5, $24.99

The sinking of an ocean liner leaves a newly married woman battling for survival in this powerful and unforgettable debut novel.

Grace Winter, 22, is both a newlywed and a widow. She is also on trial for her life.

In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.

As the castaways battle the elements, and each other, Grace recollects the unorthodox way she and Henry met, and the new life of privilege she thought she’d found. Will she pay any price to keep it?

The Lifeboat is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes.

April 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. The Lifeboat will appeal to readers interested in that history and time period. The novel raises challenging ethical and social issues, which will provide great fodder for book clubs.

The Lifeboat was inspired by Charlotte Rogan’s childhood vacations with a family of sailors, and a criminal law text she found among her husband’s books, particularly a classic case involving survivors of a shipwreck.

About the author: Charlotte Rogan studied architecture at Princeton University, graduating in 1975. She lives in Westport, Connecticut. This is her first novel.

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

AN UNEXPECTED GUEST

APRIL 2012 HARDCOVER

An Unexpected Guest: A Novel
Anne Korkeakivi
978-0-316-19677-2, $24.99

A diplomat’s wife plans a Paris dinner that could change her future—if a terrible secret doesn’t destroy it first—in this captivating debut.

Clare Moorhouse, the American wife of a high-ranking diplomat in Paris, is arranging an official dinner crucial to her husband’s career. As she shops for fresh stalks of
asparagus and works out the menu and seating arrangements, her day is complicated by the unexpected arrival of her son and a random encounter with a Turkish man, whom she discovers is a suspected terrorist. More unnerving is a recurring face in the crowd, one that belonged to another, darker era of her life. One she never expected to see again. But it can’t be him—he’s been dead for 20 years….

Like Virginia Woolf did in Mrs. Dalloway, Anne Korkeakivi brilliantly weaves the complexities of an age into an act as deceptively simple as hosting a dinner party.

About the author: Anne Korkeakivi was born and raised in New York City, and has also lived in France, Finland, and throughout the United States. A former journalist, she currently lives in Geneva, Switzerland, with her husband and two daughters. Like her heroine, Clare, Anne Korkeakivi knows the world of foreign diplomacy—she is married to an international human rights lawyer who works at the United Nations.

Publicity contact: Liz Garriga, elizabeth@garriga@hbgusa.com

11TH HOUR

MAY 2012 HARDCOVER

11th Hour
James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
978-0-316-09749-9, $27.99

Detective Lindsay Boxer investigates the discovery of severed heads in a movie star’s garden—and a vigilante targeting the city’s most despised criminals.

Millionaire Chaz Smith is mercilessly gunned down and Detective Lindsay Boxer discovers that the murder weapon is linked to the deaths of four of San Francisco’s most untouchable criminals. And it was taken from her own department’s evidence locker. Anyone could be the killer—even her closest friends.

Lindsay is then called to the most bizarre crime scene she’s ever seen: two bodiless heads elaborately displayed in the garden of a world-famous actor. Another head is unearthed in the garden, and Lindsay realizes that the ground could hide hundreds of victims.

A reporter launches a series of vicious articles about the cases and Lindsay’s personal life is laid bare. But this time she has no one to turn to—especially not Joe. 11TH HOUR is the most shocking, most emotional, and most thrilling Women’s Murder Club novel ever.

About the author: James Patterson has had 46 #1 New York Times bestselling hardcovers. The Women’s Murder Club is the bestselling new detective series of the past decade, selling 46 million copies worldwide.

This is the eighth book in the Women’s Murder Club series co-authored by Maxine Paetro. She is a novelist and journalist. She lives with her husband in New York.

Publicity contact: Sabrina Callahan, sabrina.callahan@hbgusa.com

SO FAR AWAY

MAY 2012 HARDCOVER

So Far Away: A Novel
Meg Mitchell Moore
978-0-316-09769-7, $25.99

The lives of a wayward teenager and a lonely archivist are unexpectedly joined through the discovery of an old diary.

Thirteen-year-old Natalie Gallagher is trying to escape: from her parents’ ugly divorce, and from the vicious cyberbullying of her former best friend.

THE 500

MAY 2012 HARDCOVER

The 500: A Novel
Matthew Quirk
978-0-316-19862-2, $25.99

A year ago, fresh out of Harvard Law School, Mike Ford landed his dream job at Davies Group, Washington’s most powerful consulting firm. Now, he’s staring down the barrel of a gun, pursued by two of the world’s most dangerous men. To get out, he’ll have to do all the things he thought he’d never do again: lie, cheat, steal—and this time, maybe even kill.

Mike grew up in a world of small-stakes con men and learned the trade at his father’s knee. As the Davies Group’s rising star, he rubs shoulders with “The 500,” the elite men and women who really run Washington—and the world. But peddling influence, he soon learns, is familiar work: even with a pedigree, a con is still a con.

Combining the best elements of political intrigue and heart-stopping action, The 500 calls to mind classic thrillers like The Firm and Presumed Innocent. In Mike Ford, readers will discover a new hero who learns the hard way that the higher the climb, the harder—and deadlier—the fall.

Publicity tour: Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, Chicago and Kansas City.

About the author: Matthew Quirk studied history and literature at Harvard College. After graduation, he spent five years at The Atlantic reporting on crimes, private military contractors, the opium trade, terrorism prosecutions, and international gangs.

He lives outside of Washington, DC.

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

SUMMERLAND

JUNE 2012 HARDCOVER

Summerland: A Novel
Elin Hilderbrand
978-0-316-09983-7, $26.99

Four juniors are driving home from a graduation party on Nantucket when Penny Alistair loses control of the car. Penny is killed; her twin brother is left in a coma. Penny’s boyfriend, Jake, and friend, Demeter, walk away from the crash, their wounds emotional, deep, and unshakable.

In the aftermath, Jake and his family move halfway around the globe, while Demeter escapes in self-destructive behavior. None of the families can truly move on, as the circumstances that led to the accident stretch all the way back to the first interactions between these four friends and their parents.

Summerland explores the bonds between individuals, families, and an entire community. Once again, Elin Hilderbrand tells a story of loss, love, and the power
of healing.

About the author: Elin Hilderbrand is a consistent New York Times bestseller and Little, Brown has more than 1.5 million copies of her books in print. Silver Girl debuted at #6 on the New York Times bestseller list in hardcover, and The Island spent over two months on the New York Times bestseller list in trade paperback.

Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket, the setting for her 10 previous novels, with her husband and their three children. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

Publicity tour: Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Houston.

Publicity contact: Michelle Aielli, michelle.aielli@hbgusa.com

KINGDOM OF STRANGERS

JUNE 2012 HARDCOVER

Kingdom of Strangers: A Novel
Zoë Ferraris
978-0-316-07424-7, $25.99

A riveting tale of murder and deception by the acclaimed author of City of Veils.
A secret grave is unearthed in the desert revealing the bodies of 19 women and the shocking truth that a serial killer has been operating undetected in Jeddah for more than a decade.

However, lead inspector Ibrahim Zahrani is distracted by a mystery closer to home. His mistress has suddenly disappeared, but he cannot report her missing since adultery is punishable by death. With nowhere to turn,

Ibrahim brings the case to Katya, one of the few women on the force. Drawn into both investigations, she must be increasingly careful to hide a secret of her own.
Portraying the lives of women in one of the most closed cultures in the world, award-winning author Zoë Ferraris weaves a tale of psychological suspense that delves into the dangerous territory of the Saudi underworld.

Zoë Ferraris’s previous novel, City of Veils, was a finalist for the NCIBA Book Award. Her first novel, Finding Nouf (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,2008), won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for First Fiction, was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.

About the author: Zoë Ferraris moved to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the first Gulf War to live with her then-husband and his extended family of Saudi-Palestinian Bedouins. She has an MFA from Columbia University and now lives in San Francisco.

Publicity contact: Theresa Giacopasi, theresa.giacopasi@hbgusa.com

THIS BRIGHT RIVER

JUNE 2012 HARDCOVER

This Bright River: A Novel
Patrick Somerville
978-0-316-12931-2, $24.99

Lauren Sheehan’s career in medicine came to a halt after a sequence of violent events abroad. Now she’s back in the safest place she knows—St. Helens, Wisconsin—cut off from career, friendship, and romance.

Ben Hanson’s aimless life bottomed out when he went to prison. But after his release, a surprising offer from his father draws him home. In Wisconsin, he finds his family fractured, still unable to face the truth behind his troubled cousin’s death a decade earlier.

As Lauren cautiously expands her world and Ben tries to unravel the mysteries of his family and himself, their paths intersect. Could each be exactly what the other needs?

A compelling family drama and a surprising love story, This Bright River confirms Patrick Somerville’s status as one of the most exciting young writers at work today.

About the author: The Cradle, Patrick Somerville’s first novel, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Selection for Summer 2009, was nominated for the First Novel Prize at the Center for Fiction, and was a favorite among critics, booksellers, and book clubs—giving Somerville a broad, dedicated group of fans.

Somerville is a writer with a rising profile: The Chicago Public Library named him the 21st Century Award recipient for 2009 (former winners include Aleksandar Hemon and Audrey Niffenegger), he published a collection of stories entitled The Universe in Miniature in Miniature (Featherproof Books, 2010), and Gail Mutrux, the Academy Award-winning producer of Rain Man, acquired film rights to The Cradle.

Patrick Somerville lives with his wife in Chicago and teaches creative writing at Northwestern University.

Publicity tour: Chicago, Milwaukee and New York

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

MICHAEL BENNETT’S GOLD

IMAGE TK

JULY 2012 HARDCOVER

Michael Bennett’s Gold
James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
978-0-316-09746-8, $27.99

A South American crime lord has brought New York the worst lawlessness and violence the city has ever seen. Police shot in the street. Judges murdered in the courtroom. Mayhem is unleashed—and the mayor demands that Detective Michael Bennett find a way to stop it.

Bennett takes his 10 kids and their beautiful nanny, Mary Catherine, out of the chaos on a much-needed vacation to upstate New York. But instead of escaping the violence, it follows them and they find themselves in the middle of another nightmare that threatens the entire family. The danger isn’t only coming from the crime lord’s killers — FBI Agent Emily Parker is back, and Bennett’s attraction to her endangers his relationship with Mary Catherine.

A no-holds-barred, pedal-to-the-floor, action-packed novel, Michael Bennett’s Gold is James Patterson at his most thrilling best.

The Michael Bennett series is the #1 bestselling detective series ever to be set in New York.

About the authors: James Patterson is one of the bestselling authors of all time. He lives in Florida.

Michael Ledwidge is the co-author of several books with James Patterson. He lives in New York City.

Publicity Contact: Sabrina Callahan, sabrina.callahan@hbgusa.com

WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE?

AUGUST 2012 HARDCOVER

Where’d You Go, Bernadette: A Novel
Maria Semple
978-0-316-20427-9, $25.99

A hilarious and original novel about a family in crisis after the disappearance of its brilliant, misanthropic matriarch.

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.

A seasoned comic writer who wrote for Arrested Development and Mad About You, Semple has constructed a wholly original mother/daughter story that recalls the novels of Jennifer Egan, Aimee Bender, and Lorrie Moore.

About the author: Maria Semple garnered nationwide praise for This One is Mine from reviewers and writers like Tom Perrotta, Helen Fielding, and Gigi Levangie Grazer.

Semple lives with her family in Seattle.

Publicity tour: Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle

Publicity contact: Nicole Dewey, nicole.dewey@hbgusa.com

DARE ME: A NOVEL

JULY 2012 HARDCOVER

Dare Me: A Novel
Megan Abbott
978-0-316-09777-2, $24.99

Addy Hanlon and Beth Cassidy are the cheerleaders all the other girls fear and admire. But everything changes when the new coach arrives. Cool and commanding, Coach French seems perfect in every way, a charismatic presence who overturns the girls’ established pecking order yet manages to gain their fierce allegiance.

Then a shocking event upends their fragile peace, and a police investigation begins circling in on the coach and her squad. As the girls’ season moves towards its finale, the stakes grow higher, and more dangerous, and Addy and Beth are forced to ask where their loyalties lie.

Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott, writing with what Tom Perrotta has hailed as “total authority and an almost desperate intensity,” offers up a Fight Club among cheerleaders, a harrowing exploration into the dark heart of the all-American girl.

About the author: Megan Abbott won the 2008 Edgar and Barry Awards for her third novel, Queenpin. Her novel Bury Me Deep was a finalist for the 2010 Edgar Award, the Hammett Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was also shortlisted for an Edgar Award in 2006, for Die a Little. Her most recent hardcover, The End of Everything, was an Indie Next pick; was featured in Time, the New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly; and won advance praise from bestselling authors Tom Perrotta, Kate Atkinson, and Tana French. It will be published in trade paperback in 7/12.

Abbott received her PhD in English and American Literature from New York University in 2000. She lives in New York City.

Publicity tour: New York, Boston, Phoenix, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles and Seattle.

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

WHAT IN GOD’S NAME

AUGUST 2012 HARDCOVER

What in God’s Name
Simon Rich
978-0-316-13373-9, $23.99

God, bored, decides that Earth has had its day—unless two idealistic angels can make a miracle happen.

Welcome to Heaven, Inc., where the founder and CEO has been phoning it in, concentrating more on improving his golf game than ending famines. Craig and Eliza (Department of Miracles) are two of the only hard-working angels in the entire operation, uncapping city fire hydrants on hot days and revealing lost keys in snowbanks.

When God decides to retire, he announces that he’ll destroy Earth—unless Craig and Eliza can answer one prayer before the scheduled Armageddon. Their challenge: to make the two most socially awkward people on the planet fall in love. As the doomsday clock ticks down, and their chosen lovebirds repeatedly ignore every chance for happiness the angels throw their way, Craig and Eliza move Heaven and Earth to rescue them—and the rest of us, too.

About the author: Simon Rich is a graduate of Harvard University. He is the author of Ant Farm, Free-Range Chickens, and Elliott Allagash, and he has written scripts for Lorne Michaels and Judd Apatow. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Publicity contact: Marlena Bittner, marlena.bittner@hbgusa.com

GHOST DANCES

AUGUST 2012 HARDCOVER

Ghost Dances
Proving Up on the Great Plains
Josh Garrett-Davis
978-0-316-19984-1, $27.99

A gifted young writer takes a singular journey back to his native Midwestern American Plains. Growing up in South Dakota, Josh Garrett-Davis always knew he would leave. But as a young adult, he kept going back—in dreams and reality and by way of books. With this beautifully written narrative about a seemingly empty but actually rich and complex place, he has reclaimed his childhood, his unusual family—and the Great Plains.

Among the subjects and people who bring his Plains to life are the destruction and resurgence of the American bison; his great-great-grandparents’ 20-year sojourn in Nebraska as homesteaders; Native American “Ghost Dancers,” who attempted to ward off destruction by supernatural means before the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee; the political allegory to be found in The Wizard of Oz; and current attempts by ecologists to “rewild” the Plains. Ghost Dances is a fluid combination of memoir and history and reportage that reminds us that our roots matter—and might even be inspiring and fascinating.

About the author: Josh Garrett-Davis has an MFA from Columbia University and is currently a PhD student in American history at Princeton. He was raised in South Dakota.

Publicity contact: Elizabeth Garriga, elizabeth.garriga@hbgusa.com

THE DEATH OF SWEET MISTER/TOMATO RED/GIVE US A KISS/WOE TO LIVE ON

2012 Trade Paperback

Tomato Red: A Novel
Daniel Woodrell
Foreword by Megan Abbott
978-0-316-20621-1, $14.99

“Woodrell’s down-home version of Chandleresque prose lends a near-Biblical dignity to the criminal doings.” —THE NEW YORKER

2012 Trade Paperback

The Death of Sweet Mister: A Novel
Daniel Woodrell
Foreword by Dennis Lehane
978-0-316-20614-3, $14.99

“Woodrell has achieved near mastery of style: language, plot, characterization, and theme mesh with a seamless power.” —NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW.

2012 Trade Paperback

Give Us A Kiss: A Novel
Daniel Woodrell
Foreword by Pinckney Benedict
978-0-316-20620-4, $14.99

“He celebrates blood kin, home country, and hot sex
in this rich, funny, headshakingly original novel.
Woodrell is a ladystinger of a writer.” — E. ANNIE PROULX

2012 Trade Paperback

Woe to Live On: A Novel
Foreword by Ron Rash
978-0-316-20616-7, $14.99

“A renegade Western that celebrates the genre while
bushwhacking its most cherished traditions.”
—CHICAGO TRIBUNE

About the author: Daniel Woodrell was born in the Missouri Ozarks, left school and enlisted in the marines at 17, received his bachelor’s degree at age 27, graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and spent a year on a Michener Fellowship.

He is the author of nine works of fiction, including the novel Winter’s Bone, the film adaptation of which won the Grand Jury Prize for best picture at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and received five Academy Award nominations.

The Death of Sweet Mister received the 2011 Clifton Fadiman Medal from the Center for Fiction, an award created “to honor a book that deserves renewed recognition and a wider readership.” Woodrell lives in the Ozarks near the Arkansas line with his wife, Katie Estill.