The Last Checkmate

May 1, 2021

In Sisters of the Great War, Missouri Review Editors' Prize winner Feldman crafts the story of ambitious young American Ruth Duncan--she wants to be a doctor--and her shy sister, Elise, who volunteer their services in war-torn 1914 Europe and discover love, nurse Ruth with an Englishman in the medical corps and Elise with another woman in the ambulance corps (50,000-copy first printing). In The Book of Magic, which concludes Hoffman's "Practical Magic" series, three generations of Owens women and a long-lost brother attempt to break the curse that has bound their family since Maria Owens practiced the Unnamed Art centuries ago (200,000-copy first printing). Launched with lots of in-house love, multi-AP-award-winning Miller's The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven features a young man who seeks adventure by moving to an Arctic archipelago in 1916, then withdraws further to an isolated fjord, where he's sustained by a loyal dog and letters from home until the arrival of an unexpected visitor (50,000-copy first printing). In a follow-up to Morris's multi-million-best-selling The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka's Journey, Three Sisters--Livia, Magda, and Cibi--survive Auschwitz and escape the Germans during the 1945 death march from the camp (500,000-copy first printing). In Saab's debut, Polish resistance fighter Maria is imprisoned in Auschwitz and forced by brutal camp deputy Fritzsch to play chess for his entertainment--and her life; the war's approaching resolution brings Maria closer to The Last Checkmate and a chance to avenge the deaths of her family (150,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing). Following up The Wicked Redhead with The Wicked Widow, Williams zigzags between 1925 New York, where brassy, flashy flapper Geneva "Gin" Kelly happily settles into a high-society marriage to (of all things) a Prohibition agent, and 1998, with troubled Ella Dommerich relying on Gin's ghostly help when her aunt pushes her to discover anything nasty she can about an old family enemy running for president (75,000-copy paperback and 30,000-copy hardcover first printing).

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 9, 2021
Saab’s capable debut features a revenge plot set amidst the horrors of the Holocaust. In April 1945, three months after Maria Florkowska escaped from Auschwitz, she returns to the camp armed with a gun in order to challenge Nazi officer Lagerführer Fritzsch, who’d tormented her there, to a chess match. Flashbacks provide the backstory of their relationship: At 14, Maria, a chess prodigy, joined the Polish resistance in Warsaw, delivering blank baptismal certificates to Jews so they could avoid being sent to the death camps. On one mission, she panicked when she was confronted by German officers, and, as a result, she and her family were arrested and sent to Auschwitz. There, she was separated from them, eventually learning they were executed. She was spared because Fritzsch had been sufficiently impressed by Maria’s chess playing to allow her to survive as his regular playing partner. But when Maria learns that Fritzsch may have personally executed her family, she plots her retribution. Knowing from the outset that Maria survived the camp reduces the tension in the flashback segments, though they serve to set up a powerful crescendo. Readers who love WWII fiction with strong female leads should check this out. Agent: Kaitlyn Johnson, Belcastro Agency.

October 1, 2021
Set during WWII, Saab's debut novel tells the tale of 14-year-old Maria, who lives in Warsaw, where her parents are part of the Polish Resistance against the Nazi regime. Maria is an avid chess player and applies the tactics she's gained from the game to everyday life; soon she, too, joins the Resistance. After she is interrogated by Gestapo agents, Maria, her parents, and her younger siblings are arrested and sent to Auschwitz. Maria's family is executed upon arrival, but she is spared after the camp deputy, Karl Fritzsch, learns that she plays chess. Plagued with guilt over the murders of her family, Maria is forced to compete against Fritzsch and others to survive, always aware that her time may be limited. Faced with the unfathomable horrors of the death camp and possessed of a strong will and deep courage, Maria pledges to avenge her family's deaths at any cost. With chess strategies as a compelling lure and a variety of provocative characters, Saab offers a fresh and riveting take on fortitude in an oft-dramatized hell of inexplicable loss.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.