CARRIE SOTO IS BACK by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I always love this question, because so many wonderful books go overlooked. I adore a book called Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn. It’s a comic novel set in the fading British newspaper industry of the 1960s and contains a great deal of wisdom and some excellent jokes. I’m so happy when people say the Thursday Murder Club books make them laugh, because the world can always use more laughter.

Who is your ideal reader for this book, and where would they be reading it? People love to send me pictures of themselves reading the Thursday Murder Club books around the world, usually on beaches or with a glass of wine in the garden but lots of unusual places too. My favorites so far have been overlooking the Grand Canyon, on top of Mount Fuji, and, best of all, on the Orient Express!

Interview by Laurie Muchnick

a competitor-turned-friend who, when he worked for the KGB, was known as the Bullet. All of this enables Osman to engineer scenes such as “three old men...the gangster, the KGB colonel and the trades union official” playing snooker, drinking whiskey, and thinking maybe this is all they really need in life. The mysteries are complex, the characters vivid, and the whole thing is laced with warm humor and—remarkably, considering the body count—good feeling.

Reid, Taylor Jenkins Ballantine (384 pp.) $19.69 | Aug. 30, 2022 978-0-593-15868-5

A retired tennis player returns to the game to defend her Grand Slam record. Carrie Soto is the best tennis player in the world, and she knows it. Her father, Javier, is a former tennis champion himself, and he’s dedicated his life to coaching her. By the time she retires in 1989, she holds the record for winning 20 Grand Slam singles titles. But then, in 1994, Nicki Chan comes along. Nicki is on the verge of breaking Carrie’s record, and Carrie decides she can’t let that happen: She’s coming out of retirement, with her father coaching her, to defend her record…and her reputation. Carrie was never a friendly player, preferring to focus on both a brutal game and brutal honesty, and now the media has a field day with her return to the sport as a 37-year-old. At times, it seems like everyone is waiting for her to fail, but when Carrie wants something, she doesn’t give up easily. Along the way, she reconnects with Bowe Huntley, a 39-year-old tennis player she once had a fling with. Now they need to help each other train, but Carrie quickly realizes she might need him for more than just tennis— if she can let herself be vulnerable for the first time in her life. Reid writes about the game with suspense, transforming a tennis match into a page-turner even for readers who don’t care about sports. Will Carrie win? And, more importantly, will she finally make time for a life outside of winning? Reid has scored another victory and created another memorable heroine with Carrie Soto, a brash, often unlikable character whose complexity makes her leap off the page. Sports commentators may call her “The Battle Axe” or worse, but readers will root for her both on and off the court.