Having Read That with Brian Vakulskas: Recent Episodes
KSCJ News Talk Radio
Author: Brad Meltzer (and Josh Mensch)
Book: THE NAZI CONSPIRACY: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill (Young Reader’s Edition)
Publishing: Scholastic Focus (October 21, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Brad_Meltzer_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
New York Times bestselling authors Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch adapt their instant bestseller, The Nazi Conspiracy, for young readers to bring them the heart-pounding story of the assassination plot that nearly changed the course of history.It’s 1943. Nazi Germany and its Axis power allies are ravaging Europe and the Pacific with a terrible war. At this juncture, President Franklin Roosevelt has one critical goal: a face-to-face meeting with his allies, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill.The first ever meeting of the “Big Three” is set to take place in Tehran, Iran, where the leaders of the three great superpowers will discuss and decide on some of the most crucial strategic details of the war.
But when the Nazis learn about the meeting, they form their own secret, deadly plan: an assassination plot that would forever change history…if they’re successful.
This riveting true story, filled with daring rescues and high stakes intrigue, explains how this pivotal meeting in Tehran changed the course of World War II, and how the Nazi conspiracy to assassinate the Allied leaders nearly led to world-shattering disaster.
Renowned authors Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch bring their New York Times bestseller, The Nazi Conspiracy, to young readers for the first time with this action-packed page-turner that offers an informative overview of World War II and details the heart-pounding true story of the Nazi plot to assassinate Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill at the height of World War II.
Scholastic Focus is the premier home of thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and thoughtfully designed works of narrative nonfiction aimed at middle-grade and young adult readers. These books help readers learn about the world in which they live and develop their critical thinking skills, so that they may become dynamic citizens who are able to analyze and understand our past, participate in essential discussions about our present, and work to grow and build our future.
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Co-Editors: Lucas E. Morel & Jonathan W. White
Book: MEASURING THE MAN: The Writings of Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln
Publishing: Reedy Press (October 1, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Lucas_Morel_Jonathan_White_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
In Measuring the Man, acclaimed scholars Lucas E. Morel and Jonathan W. White assemble Frederick Douglass’s most meaningful and poignant statements about Abraham Lincoln, including a dozen newly discovered documents that have not been seen for 160 years. Readers will encounter the distrust and vitriol Douglass directed at Lincoln throughout much of the Civil War, including his anger and frustration with the president as he moved slowly, but methodically, toward emancipation. Douglass’s writings also reveal how three personal interactions between these two great men led to powerful feelings of friendship and mutual admiration. After Lincoln’s assassination—as Jim Crow laws and political violence gutted the hard-won rights of Black Americans—Douglass expressed greater appreciation for Lincoln’s statesmanship during the Civil War and praised him as a model for postwar America. There is no one better than Frederick Douglass to offer a critical assessment of the Great Emancipator and savior of the Union. His reflections not only convey Lincoln’s contributions to the nation but also teach today’s generation timely lessons on how to fulfill the promise of the American republic. Measuring the Man sheds new light on the most critical period of American history and will transform the way we think about these two extraordinary leaders.
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Author: Elizabeth George
Book: A SLOWLY DYING CAUSE: A Lynley Novel
Publishing: Viking (September 23, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Elizabeth_George_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A new and highly anticipated Inspector Lynley TV series releasing this fall from BritBoxDetective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley are back in the next Lynley novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George.
Michael Lobb has just been found dead on the floor of his family’s tin & pewter workshop. It’s suspicious enough that his body was found by a representative of Cornwall EcoMining, a company keen on acquiring his family’s land, and it’s made even worse when he’s revealed to have been the majority owner of the business and the sole obstacle preventing a deal from being made. But it doesn’t take long for Inspector Beatrice Hannaford to unearth the layers of estrangement that surrounded Michael in his final days, pointing suspicions elsewhere. In comes Kayla, a young woman half Michael’s age, who has just been made his widow.
Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers are brought in to help solve the crime and search for justice in a community where lust, greed, and family traditions collide with devastating consequences.
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Author: Lisa Gardner
Book: KISS HER GOODBYE: A Novel
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (August 12, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Lisa_Gardner_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A New York Times bestselling author returns with the latest installment in the addictive Frankie Elkin series, in which Frankie is called to Tucson, Arizona, to find a missing Afghan refugee, whose friend suspects she is in grave danger—before it is too late. “Timely and completely gripping.” (Louise Penny, New York Times bestselling author)
Recent Afghan refugee and young mother Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband seems unconcerned. At the insistence of Sabera’s closest friend, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search just in time for a video of Sabera to surface—showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder.
Frankie quickly notes there’s much more to the Ahmadi family than meets the eye. The father Isaad is a brilliant mathematician, Sabera a gifted linguist, and their little girl Zahra has an uncanny ability to remember anything she sees. Which given everything that has happened during the girl’s short life, may be a terrible curse.
When Isaad also disappears under mysterious circumstances and an attempt is made on Zahra’s life, Frankie realizes she must crack the code of this family’s horrific past. Someone is coming for the Ahmadis. And violence is clearly an option.
When everything is on the line, how far would you go to protect the ones you love? Frankie is about to find out.
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Author: Mitch Harris
Book: MY PRIVATE WAR: Relentlessly Chasing a Dream – From the Navy to the Major Leagues
Publishing: LT4D, LLC (July 6, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Mitch_Harris_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“Making it to the big leagues isn’t just about talent. It takes grit, sacrifice, and an unshakable belief in yourself and in God’s plan, especially when the odds are against you. My Private War captures Mitch’s journey perfectly. It’s a powerful reminder that perseverance, determination, and faith can take you further than you ever imagined.”
— John Smoltz
HALL OF FAME PITCHER, ATLANTA BRAVES
“Mitch Harris’ journey is one of faith, family, military service, and an unyielding love for baseball. Through every challenge, he remained honest about his struggles but never lost sight of his dream. With determination and resilience, he proved that true heroes aren’t just made on the field—but in life itself.”
— Jim “The Rookie” Morris
FORMER PITCHER, TAMPA BAY RAYS
On the electrifying night of April 25, 2015, inside Milwaukee’s Miller Park, 29-year-old Mitch Harris achieved what many said was impossible: pitching in the Major Leagues. It took more than a powerful right arm. It also took remarkable tenacity for Harris to battle through daunting odds, heartbreak, doubt, and the persistent resistance of the United States Navy.
In My Private War, Harris delivers a raw and inspiring account of his extraordinary journey from Navy lieutenant to the St. Louis Cardinals’ lineup, overcoming five years away from the game and the rapid aging of his arm to become the first Naval Academy graduate to play in the big leagues in 94 years.
But this is more than a baseball story. It is a story about understanding the difference between impossible and improbable, and a testament to perseverance and the power of chasing a dream, even when the world tells you it’s too late.
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Author: Steve Berry
Book: THE LIST: A Novel of Suspense
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (July 22, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Steve_Berry_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
In the vein of David Baldacci, John Grisham, and Harlan Coben—this is Steve Berry like you’ve never read him before.
After a ten-year self-imposed exile, Brent Walker is returning home to Concord, a quaint town in central Georgia nestled close to the Savannah River. Two years ago, his father died, and now Brent, hired by Southern Republic Pulp and Paper Company as its assistant general counsel, is returning to care for his ailing mother.
For decades, Southern Republic has invested heavily in Concord, creating a thriving community where its employees live, work, and retire. But the genteel sheen of this quiet town is deceiving, and when a list of cryptic code surfaces, Brent starts to see the cracks.
Southern Republic’s success is based largely on a highly unorthodox and deadly system to control costs, known only to the three owners of the company. Now, one of them, Christopher Bozin, has had a change of heart. Brent’s return to Concord, a move Bozin personally orchestrated, provides his conscience with a chance at redemption. So a plan is set into motion, one that will not only criminally implicate Bozin’s two partners, but also place Brent Walker square in the crosshairs of men who want him dead—with only one course left available.
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Author: M.P. Woodward
Book: TOM CLANCY LINE OF DEMARCATION: A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (May 20, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/MP_Woodward_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The discovery of an oil field off the coast of Guyana plunges Jack Ryan, Jr into a cauldron of lies in the latest entry in this New York Times bestselling series.It starts with the destruction of a US Coast Guard cutter and the loss of her entire crew. But the USCG Claiborne was on an innocuous mission to open a sea lane between an oil field off the coast of South America and the refineries of southern Louisiana. The destruction of the ship, tragic as it is, won’t stop that mission from continuing.
So who would sacrifice twenty-two men and women just to slow down the plan? That’s the question plaguing Jack Ryan Jr. He’s in Guyana to work a deal to get his company, Hendley Associates, in on the ground floor of this new discovery, but Russia’s Wagner Group and a pack of Venezuelan narco-terrorists have other ideas—and will risk war with the United States to see them through. It’s up to Jack to identify the killers before they draw a bead on him, but how can he do that when the line of demarcation between friend and foe is constantly shifting?
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Author: Laurence Leamer
Book: WARHOL’S MUSES: The Artists, Misfits, and Superstars Destroyed by the Factory Fame Machine
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (May 6, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Laurence_Leamer_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
ONE OF “12 NEW NONFICTION BOOKS YOU NEED TO READ IN 2025”—THE OBSERVER
A “MUST-READ” BOOK OF SPRING 2025 – TOWN & COUNTRY
ONE OF “25 BOOKS TO READ IN 2025”—TORONTO STARFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Capote’s Women comes an astonishing account of the revolutionary artist Andy Warhol and his scandalous relationships with the ten women he deemed his “Superstars”.
“Now and then, someone would accuse me of being evil,” Andy Warhol confessed, “of letting people destroy themselves while I watched, just so I could film them.” Obsessed with celebrity, the silver-wigged artistic icon created an ever-evolving entourage of stunning women he dubbed his “Superstars”—Baby Jane Holzer, Edie Sedgwick, Nico, Ultra Violet, Viva, Brigid Berlin, Ingrid Superstar, International Velvet, Mary Woronov, and Candy Darling. He gave several of them new names and manipulated their beauty and talent for his art and social status with no regard for their safety, their dignity, or their lives.
In Warhol’s Muses, bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer shines a spotlight on the complex women who inspired and starred in Warhol’s legendary underground films—The Chelsea Girls, The Nude Restaurant, and Blue Movie, among others. Drawn by the siren call of Manhattan life in the sixties, they each left their protected enclaves and ventured to a new world, Warhol’s famed Factory, having no sense that they would never be able to return to their old homes and familiar ways again. Sex was casual, drugs were ubiquitous, parties were wild, and to Warhol, everyone was transient, temporary, and replaceable. It was a dangerous game he played with the women around him, and on a warm June day in 1968, someone entered the Factory and shot him, changing his life forever.
Warhol’s Muses explores the lives of ten endlessly intriguing women, transports us to a turbulent and transformative era, and uncovers the life and work of one of the most legendary artists of all time.
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Author: Amor Towles
Book: TABLE FOR TWO: Fictions
Publishing: Penguin Books (April 8, 2025 – Paperback Edition)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Amor_Towles_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A New York Times Bestseller
“This may be Towles’ best book yet. Each tale is as satisfying as a master chef’s main course, filled with drama, wit, erudition and, most of all, heart.” —Los Angeles Times“The book spans the 20th century, bringing characters into tableaus of deceit and desire. Beneath his coifed prose Towles is a master of the shiv, the bait and switch; we see the flash of light before the shock wave strikes, often in the final sentence. . . . Table for Two delivers the kick of a martini served in the Polo Lounge.” – The New York Times Book Review
Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.
The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how one of Towles’s most beloved characters, the indomitable Evelyn Ross from Rules of Civility, crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of 1930s Los Angeles.
Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.
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Author: Robert K. Tanenbaum
Book: THAT DAY IN DALLAS: Lee Harvey Oswald Did NOT Kill JFK
Publishing: Regnery (May 20, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Robert_Tanenbaum_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
That Day in Dallas: Lee Harvey Oswald Did Not Kill JFK is best described as a prosecution by Robert K. Tanenbaum of those corrupt, unscrupulous government and unelected agency officials, who from inception with predetermined outcomes, deceitfully engaged in insecure, phony pretense probes regarding the assassination in Dealey Plaza. Those responsible are prosecuted while those who speak truth to power are exonerated.
Robert Tanenbaum, who in 1976 was appointed deputy chief counsel in charge of the congressional investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy, provides stunning and shocking “immutable facts” that reveal unequivocally that the government’s reliance on the Warren Commission (WC) investigation and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) alleged probe were reprehensibly and ultimately gut-wrenchingly misleading and downright dishonest.
The HSCA was not interested in searching for truth. In fact, as an example, it ultimately fabricated a significant portion of its forensic medical panel summary report and then sealed for fifty years all the underlying documents.
For the past sixty years, the government’s contrived case that a sole gunman fired from the rear three shots from the sixth-floor sniper’s nest window inside the Dallas Book Depository building, rested substantially on invalid science and common sense offered to prove the so-called “Single-Bullet Theory.” Evidence shows that five shots were fired in Dealey Plaza, not three. Corroboration of the fourth shot, the fatal blast fired from the geographical front of JFK at the knoll hill stockade fence area, includes witnesses and exhibits, as well as scientific audio and photo verification, while significant convincing evidence shows that the fifth shot came from a northeast building complex behind JFK.
The uncomfortable truth is that Lee Harvey Oswald has been unjustly accused as the assassin notwithstanding his contract employee status of both the CIA and FBI.
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Co-Authors: Rick Jackson & Matthew McGough
Book: BLACK TUNNEL WHITE MAGIC: A Murder, a Detective’s Obsession, and ’90s Los Angeles at the Brink
Publishing: Mulholland Books (March 4, 2025)
Listen to the full 4-part interview here:
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Rick_Jackson_full_to_air.mp3BUY THE BOOK!
Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Detective Rick Jackson, a decorated LAPD detective and a key inspiration in the development of Harry Bosch, delivers a shocking and immersive look into the one case he could never let go.In June 1990, Ronald Baker, a straight-A UCLA student, was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a tunnel near Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers once lived. Shortly thereafter, Detective Rick Jackson and his partner, Frank Garcia, were assigned the case. Yet the facts made no sense. Who would have a motive to kill Ron Baker in such a grisly manner? Was the proximity to the Manson ranch related to the murder? And what about the pentagram pendant Ron wore around his neck?
Jackson and Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker’s two male roommates, one Black, and one white. What emerges is at once a story of confounding betrayal and cold-hearted intentions, as well as a larger portrait of an embattled Los Angeles, a city in the grip of the Satanic Panic and grappling with questions of racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of Rodney King.
In straightforward, matter-of-fact prose, Rick Jackson, the now-retired police detective who helped inspire Michael Connelly’s beloved Harry Bosch, along with co-writer, Matthew McGough, take us through the events as he and his partner experienced them, piecing together the truth with each emerging clue. Black Tunnel White Magic is the true story of a murder in cold blood, deception and betrayal, and a city at the brink, set forth by the only man who could tell it.
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Co-author: Tom Lange (& Robert Souza)
Book: THE DIRTY BUSINESS OF MURDER: The Inside Story of Homicide Investigation in the City of Angels
Publishing: Independently published (October 22, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Tom_Lange_complete_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The book comprises some (24) compelling murder investigations in Los Angeles that were handled by the writers, or in which they played a role to one extent or another. The book also contains a deeper dive into four additional serial killer investigations that involved the writers as lead detectives in the cases. Several other serial killer cases that plagued the southern California area are alluded to throughout. A number of other related issues (i.e. Serial Killing defined, Philosophy for the Homicide Cop, O.J. Simpson re-visit & others) are included. There is also a photo section and related “Wanted” police bulletins appear with related stories.
The types of cases vary significantly. They include domestic, home invasion, organized crime, serial robbers, cold cases, contract killers, serial killer and law-enforcement related murders (cops as victims and cops as killers).
The writers have a combined (50) years of police related experience with the Los Angeles Police Department and over (30) years of high-profile homicide investigative experience. The book also contains a blurb from author Michael Connelly.
BUY ANY OF TOM’S BOOKS BY CLICKING ON THE COVER BELOW:
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Author: Judy Henderson
Book: WHEN THE LIGHT FINDS US: From a Life Sentence to a Life Transformed
Publishing: Worthy Books (April 15, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Judy_Henderson_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A testament to the indomitable human spirit and the power of a mother’s love, this story of a wrongfully incarcerated woman’s fight for freedom and her family will inspire all.
Judy Henderson was a single mother with a successful small business of her own when she was arrested and convicted of a crime she did not commit. Sentenced to life in prison, Henderson faced the untenable: leaving her young children as she entered the brutal prison system. Even as she faced violence, mistreatment, Henderson persevered with hope and determination. She never lost sight of her innocence—or her deeply held role as a mother. She also gained new purpose, fighting for her clemency and for the rights of incarcerated women, especially mothers. As the years passed, Henderson experienced hope through serendipitous events and calls, letters, and too infrequent visits with her children and other family. With the support of the prosecutor who once sought her conviction and the Missouri governor, Henderson was granted clemency and received a full pardon after nearly thirty-five years behind bars.
When the Light Finds Us is a gripping narrative that explores the depths of human resilience and the transformative power of hope. Henderson’s story will inspire readers to persevere through their own struggles, reminding us of the strength of the human spirit and the unbreakable bond of a mother’s love. In a world often filled with darkness, Judy Henderson’s journey is a beacon of light, illuminating the path to redemption and the triumph of justice.
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Author: Joseph Finder
Book: THE OLIGARCH’S DAUGHTER: A Novel
Publishing: Harper (January 28, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Joseph_Finder_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“Any new novel by Joseph Finder is a ticket to reading pleasure, and this one is hands down his best ever.”—Stephen King
“This is Finder at his finest—a perfect everyman-in-peril story, first building an ominous drumbeat of menace, then exploding in action and intrigue and triumph. As good as it gets.”—Lee Child
From the New York Times bestselling author of House on Fire, a breakneck thriller that marries the dynastic opulence of Succession with the tense and disorienting spycraft of The Americans.
Paul Brightman is a man on the run, living under an assumed name in a small New England town with a million-dollar bounty on his head. When his security is breached, Paul is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness to evade Russian operatives who can seemingly predict his every move.
Six years ago, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer named Tatyana—unaware that her father was a Russian oligarch and the object of considerable interest from several U.S. intelligence agencies. Now, to save his own life, Paul must unravel a decades-old conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of the government.
Rivaling the classic spy novels of the Cold War, The Oligarch’s Daughter is built for the frightening world we live in now.
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Author: C.J. Box
Book: BATTLE MOUNTAIN: A Joe Pickett Novel
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (February 25, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CJ_Box_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Outlaw falconer Nate Romanowski is off the grid and out for revenge in this riveting new novel from #1 New York Times bestseller C. J. Box.The campaign of destruction that Axel Soledad and Dallas Cates wreaked on Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett left both men in tatters, especially Nate, who lost almost everything. Wondering if the civilized life left him vulnerable to attack, Nate dropped off the grid with his falcons in tow to prepare for vengeance.
When Joe gets a call from the governor asking for help finding his son-in-law, who has gone missing in the Sierra Madre mountain range, he enlists the help of a local, a rookie game warden named Susan Kany.
As Nate and fellow falconer Geronimo Jones circle closer to their prey, Joe and Susan follow the nearly cold trail to Warm Springs. Little do Nate and Joe know that their separate journeys are about to converge . . . at Battle Mountain.
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Author: Steve Berry
Book: THE MEDICI RETURN: A Cotton Malone Novel
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (February 11, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Steve_Berry_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From celebrated New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry comes the latest installment in his wildly popular Cotton Malone series—now in development as a streaming series. The Medici Return takes Cotton to Italy to solve a five hundred year-old mystery. Cotton Malone is on the hunt for a forgotten 16th century Pledge of Christ—a sworn promise made by Pope Julius II that evidences a monetary debt owed by the Vatican, still valid after five centuries—now worth in the trillions of dollars. But collecting that debt centers around what happened to the famed Medici of Florence—a family that history says died out, without heirs, centuries ago.
Who will become the next prime minister of Italy, and who will be the next pope? Finding answers proves difficult until Cotton realizes that everything hinges on when, and if, the Medici return.
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Author: Dr. Cristina LePort, MD
Book: CHANGE OF HEART (A Miner & Mulville Medical Thriller)
Publishing: Bancroft Press (February 4, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cristina_LePort_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
In the bustling heart of New York City, a young medical student’s life is tragically cut short, though her heart continues to beat, holding the promise of life for another. Detective Kirk Miner is called to the scene and quickly uncovers a chilling conspiracy involving organ donations and high-stakes crime. As the investigation unfolds, Miner realizes the case is far more complex and dangerous than it initially seemed.
Enter FBI Agent Jack Mulville, who steps in to supervise Special Agent Charlotte Bloom as they join forces with Miner. Together, they unravel a web of corruption, revealing that Amy Winter’s death is connected to a ruthless organ trafficking ring.
Amy Winter, a promising pre-med student, is found dead under mysterious circumstances. Her death triggers an investigation that pulls Miner, Mulville, and Bloom into a labyrinth of deceit and desperation. As they dig deeper, they discover that Amy’s heart is not just a donor’s gift but a coveted prize in a deadly game controlled by criminals willing to kill to keep their secrets hidden.
The quest for justice takes Miner, Mulville, and Bloom through the shadowy underbelly of organ trafficking, revealing the lengths to which people will go to secure life-saving transplants. Amidst the danger, they face moral dilemmas and personal risks, pushing them to their limits as they strive to protect innocent lives and dismantle a powerful criminal network.
“Change of Heart” is a gripping medical thriller that intertwines the intricacies of modern medicine with the relentless pursuit of justice. Cristina LePort, M.D., masterfully combines her medical expertise with edge-of-your-seat storytelling, delivering a novel that will keep you turning pages long into the night.
Dr. LePort is an accomplished physician with a passion for weaving medical knowledge into thrilling narratives. Her extensive background in medicine lends authenticity and depth to her stories, making the Miner & Mulville series a unique blend of fact and fiction.
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Author: TJ Klune
Book: THE BONES BENEATH MY SKIN
Publishing: Tor Books (February 4, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/TJ_Klune_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A spine-tingling standalone novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune―a supernatural road-trip thriller featuring an extraordinary young girl and her two unlikely protectors on the run from cultists and the government.
There’s nothing more human than a broken heart.
In the spring of 1995, Nate Cartwright has lost everything: his parents are dead, his only brother wants nothing to do with him, and he’s been fired from his job as a journalist in Washington, DC.
With nothing left to lose, he returns to his family’s summer cabin outside the small mountain town of Roseland, Oregon, to try and find some sense of direction. The cabin should be empty. It’s not.
Inside is a man named Alex. And with him is an extraordinary ten-year-old girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader. Artemis, who isn’t exactly as she appears.
Soon it becomes clear that Nate must make a choice: let himself drown in the memories of his past, or fight for a future he never thought possible. Because the girl is special. And forces are descending upon them who want nothing more than to control her.
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Author: Maria van Lieshout
Book: SONG OF A BLACKBIRD
Publishing: First Second (January 21, 2025)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Maria_van_Lieshout_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
FOUR STARRED REVIEWS!
“This is essential, illuminating reading.” ―R. J. Palacio, bestselling author of Wonder
Fight hate. Make art.
In 1943 Amsterdam, Emma Bergsma’s world changes when she witnesses Jewish families being forcibly deported to concentration camps. That pivotal moment lights a fire within her, and she decides to join the Dutch Resistance. Before long, Emma is drawn into a clandestine world of printing presses and counterfeiters, with thousands of lives on the line.
In 2011 Amsterdam, teenage Annick’s world has changed as well. A search for a bone marrow donor for her beloved oma leads to a shocking revelation: her grandmother was secretly adopted as a child. The only clues to finding their lost family are a series of art prints hanging on the wall―each signed by a mysterious “Emma B.”
This timely graphic novel weaves together two timelines to reveal how art, in the face of political upheaval and nearly insurmountable adversity, can become our greatest lifeline.
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Author: Marcia Clark
Book: TRIAL BY AMBUSH: Murder, Injustice, and the Truth About the Case of Barbara Graham
Publishing: Thomas & Mercer (December 1, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Marcia_Clark_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
In this dramatic true account about the power of sensationalized crime, one woman’s case is exposed for its sexism, flagrant disregard for the truth, and, ultimately, the dangers posed by an unbridled prosecution.
Unwanted and neglected from birth, Barbara Graham had to overcome the odds just to survive. Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse―offering her too many options of all the wrong kind. Her innate sensitivity left her vulnerable to the harsh realities of the street, where she was left to fend for herself before she reached double digits. Her record of petty crimes spoke to a life that constantly teetered on the brink of disaster.
But in 1953, a catastrophic twist of fate would catapult her out of obscurity and into the headlines.
When a robbery spiraled out of control and escalated into a brutal murder, Barbara became the centerpiece of a media circus. Her beauty enraptured the press, and they were quick to portray her as a villainous femme fatale despite abundant evidence to the contrary―a fiction the prosecution eagerly promoted.
The frenzy of public interest and willful distortion paved a treacherous path for Barbara Graham. In Trial by Ambush, author and criminal lawyer Marcia Clark investigates the case exposing the fallacies in the demonizing picture they painted and the critical evidence that was never revealed.
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Author: Robin Cook
Book: BELLEVUE: A Novel
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (December 3, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Robin_Cook_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From the bestselling author and “master of the medical thriller” (The New York Times), Robin Cook, comes a new tale of suspense-horror about a first-year resident whose life-shattering visions reveal the truth behind some of the greatest medical advances in the history of medicine.Twenty-three-year-old Michael “Mitt” Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly three-hundred-year-old, iconic Bellevue Hospital, following in the footsteps of four previous, celebrated Fuller generations. The pressure is on for this newly minted doctor, and to his advantage he’s always had a secret sixth sense, a sensitivity to the nonphysical. But quickly one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. As he tries to juggle these inexplicable deaths with the demands of being a first-year resident, things rapidly spiral out of control.
Visions begin to plague Mitt—visions of a little girl in a bloodstained dress, bloodcurdling screams in the distance, and worse. As bodies mount and Mitt’s stress level rises, he finds himself drawn to the monumental, abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building, which to his astonishment has somehow defied the wrecking-ball and still stands a few doors north of the modern Bellevue Hospital high-rise. Forcing an unauthorized entry into this storied but foreboding structure, Mitt discovers he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.
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Author: Amy Sarig King
Book: ATTACK OF THE BLACK RECTANGLES
Publishing: Scholastic Press (September 3, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Amy_Sarig_King_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Award-winning author Amy Sarig King takes on censorship and intolerance in a novel she was born to write.
Attack of the Black Rectangles joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!
When Mac first opens his classroom copy of Jane Yolen’s The Devil’s Arithmetic and finds some words blacked out, he thinks it must be a mistake. But then when he and his friends discover what the missing words are, he’s outraged.
Someone in his school is trying to prevent kids from reading the full story.
But who?
Even though his unreliable dad tells him to not get so emotional about a book (or anything else), Mac has been raised by his mom and grandad to call out things that are wrong. He and his friends head to the principal’s office to protest the censorship… but her response doesn’t take them seriously.
So many adults want Mac to keep his words to himself.
Mac’s about to see the power of letting them out.
In Attack of the Black Rectangles, acclaimed author Amy Sarig King shows all the ways truth can be hard… but still worth fighting for.
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Author: Sharon Virts
Book: THE GRAYS OF TRUTH
Publishing: Flashpoint (October 29, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Sharon_Virts_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From bestselling historical true-crime author Sharon Virts comes a gripping tale of murder and deceit.
In Reconstruction-era Baltimore, members of the city’s elite keep turning up dead. Below the polished surface of high society, there are illicit affairs, jilted lovers, financial hardships, and countless motives for murder. When Jane Gray Wharton’s husband, Ned, dies unexpectedly while overnighting at his brother’s home, Jane has no reason to question the circumstances of his death. But on a visit to the same house a few weeks later, both Jane and her daughter fall gravely ill, and Jane begins to suspect foul play.
Though a trained chemist and former nurse, Jane is haunted by a history of delusion, loss, and institutionalization. As the unexpected and devastating deaths begin to multiply, Jane’s grip on reality starts to slip. When a respected army officer falls terribly ill after visiting the Whartons’ Baltimore home, Jane’s greatest fears become all too real. The time has come to act—but who will believe her? And can she even trust her own mind?
Inspired by true events involving one of Baltimore’s most powerful families, The Grays of Truth is the story of one woman’s quest for answers in her fight for redemption—and to save the man she loves.
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Author: David Baldacci
Book: TO DIE FOR: A 6:20 Man Thriller
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (November 12, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/David_Baldacci_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From a #1 New York Times bestselling author, the 6:20 Man returns, this time sent to the Pacific Northwest to aid in a complicated FBI case—and he’s about to come face-to-face with his nemesis, the girl on the train. Travis Devine has become a pro at accomplishing any mission he’s given. But this time it’s not his skills that send him to Seattle to aid the FBI in escorting orphaned, twelve-year-old Betsy Odom to a meeting with her uncle, who’s under federal investigation. Instead, he’s hoping to lay low and keep off the radar of an enemy–the girl on the train.
But as Devine gets to know Betsy, questions begin to arise around the death of her parents. Devine digs for answers, and what he finds points to a conspiracy bigger than he could’ve ever imagined.
It might finally be time for Devine and the girl on the train to come face-to-face. Devine is going to find out the difference between his friends and his enemies–and in some cases, they might well be both.
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Author: Erika Engelhaput
Book: GO TO HELL: A Traveler’s Guide to Earth’s Most Otherworldly Destinations
Publishing: National Geographic (August 13, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Erika_Englehaupt_to_air.mp3Version 1.0.0Synopsis (from the Publisher):
You can go to hell and back with the help of this one-of-a-kind illustrated travel guide to real-life underworld destinations around the globe. Full of intrigue, lore, and plenty of brimstone and fire, each of the 54 destinations—from Antarctica’s Blood Falls to a tropical hell on Grand Cayman island—will be worth adding to your devilish bucket list.The world over, humans have been fascinated by hell in some form or another for thousands of years and across cultures. Now, with this illustrated collection, you can add hell to your travel bucket list with more than 50 one-of-a-kind underworld destinations, from ghost towns where Halloween is always in season, to ancient caves long viewed as entrances to Hades, to volcanoes that brim with fire and legend.
Don’t be scared: along with the fascinating history of each location, star author Erika Engelhaupt also offers practical tips to make the most of your visit to the underbelly of the world. These hellish destinations include:
- Ireland’s “Hell Caves,” where Halloween was born
- The Gates of Hell crater in Turkmenistan, burning for more than 50 years
- Hell, Michigan, where you can serve as the mayor of Hell for a day
- Turkey’s Pluto’s Gate, an ancient Greco-Roman temple guarding a toxic cave
- China’s Fengdu City of Ghosts, where tourists pre-game the afterlife in a town devoted to the underworld
- The Maya Cenotes throughout the Yucatan Peninsula, long considered portals to hell
- And so many more!
Ever wish you could send a postcard from hell? Now you can.
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Author: Aaron Fischman
Book: A BASEBALL GAIJIN: Chasing a Dream to Japan and Back
Publishing: Sports Publishing (June 18, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Aaron_Fischman_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Like many American boys, Tony Barnette yearned to one day make it to “The Show,” playing baseball professionally. The Arizona State pitcher was drafted in 2006 by the in-state Diamondbacks. Gradually ascending the minor-league ladder, it looked like this was the beginning of a blessed life, where he could play the game he loved on the grandest of stages in front of family and friends.But things don’t always work out the way we want.
On the verge of achieving his lifelong dream after notching a league-high 14 wins in Triple A, Tony looked ahead to 2010 with optimism. That’s when Japan came calling, offering a significant salary hike in exchange for forgoing a likely forthcoming big-league debut.
The Diamondbacks agreed to release Tony so he could play for Tokyo’s Yakult Swallows, the renowned Yomiuri Giants’ intra-city rivals.
At the time, the only thing he had in common with the country was a love for baseball. He did not know the language and was unfamiliar with Nippon Professional Baseball and essentially everything else. On his own in a strange land, the burning desire to one day make the major leagues never subsided. He knew the odds were against him, as less than one quarter of gaijin (Japanese for “foreigner”) ballplayers who go to Japan appear in the majors at any point thereafter.
First-year struggles led to multiple demotions and his end-of-year release. But when you’re chasing a dream, you expect to encounter several obstacles. Tony refused to be deterred. Over six seasons in Japan, the starter became a reliever and then a closer. After a strong 2015 season, in which he guided his long-suffering Swallows to the Japan Series, he finally got the call he had been waiting for. Signing with the Texas Rangers in December, Tony would make his first major-league appearance on April 5, 2016, at age thirty-two. He’d go on to pitch four seasons with the Rangers and Chicago Cubs, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
Through extensive research and reporting, Aaron Fischman worked directly with Tony to tell his story of perseverance, determination, and never giving up on your dream.
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Author: Solomon Schmidt
Book: LEGAL GLADIATOR: The Life of Alan Dershowitz
Publishing: Skyhorse (August 20, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Solomon_Schmidt_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The only biography of America’s most controversial lawyer.
Legal Gladiator is the story of perhaps the greatest lawyer in American history. It is the story of a poor, failing high schooler from Brooklyn who became the youngest professor in the history of Harvard Law School, where Ted Cruz, Natalie Portman, Mike Pompeo, Jamie Raskin, and others sat under his tutelage. It is the story of a passionate Zionist who advocated for Israel on the world stage and became a confidant of Israeli prime ministers, including Benjamin Netanyahu. And it is the story of a zealous young liberal who, as an old man, stood in front of the Senate to declare that they would be violating the Constitution by removing a Republican president he himself opposed.
As a lawyer, Alan Dershowitz has had a major impact on the most notorious legal cases in modern U.S. history. From Claus von Bulow to Mike Tyson to O.J. Simpson to Jeffrey Epstein to Donald Trump, he has devoted his life to championing the bedrock principle of the American justice system: that every person—no matter how despised—has the right to a rigorous legal defense. Legal Gladiator explores Dershowitz’s rise to prominence, gives the inside story of his most high-profile cases and controversies, and provides a shockingly intimate look into his personal life.
Dershowitz gave author Solomon Schmidt unprecedented access to his personal and professional life, including his private archives at Brooklyn College and dozens of interviews with him virtually and in New York City, Miami, Martha’s Vineyard, and Israel. This book includes exclusive interview content from Bob Shapiro, Jeffrey Toobin, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Glenn Greenwald, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Eliot Spitzer, Justice Stephen Breyer, Mike Huckabee, Woody Allen, Noam Chomsky, Jared Kushner, Geraldo Rivera, Mark Levin, Mike Pompeo, Megyn Kelly, Mike Tyson, Ted Cruz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., O.J. Simpson, and Donald Trump, among others.
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Author: Rosanne Parry
Book: A HORSE NAMED SKY
Publishing: Greenwillow Books (August 29, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Rosanne_Parry_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
An instant New York Times bestseller!
A stand-alone companion to the national bestsellers A Wolf Called Wander and A Whale of the Wild.
Exiled from his band, a young, wild horse must find his way across treacherous terrain to reunite with his family after being captured for the Pony Express. Horn Book calls A Horse Named Sky “engrossing and fast-paced.” This Voice on the Wilderness novel is an enthralling survival story about wild horses, family bonds, and a changing environment.
Young colt Sky was born with the urge to run. Alongside his band, he moves across the range searching for fresh water and abundant grazing. But humans have begun to encroach on Sky’s homelands. With fewer resources to share, Sky knows that he must leave if his family is to survive. He hopes that one day he’ll be strong and brave enough to return and challenge the stallion to lead the herd.
Being a lone wild horse in a vast landscape is not easy, and things get even more dangerous when Sky is captured and forced to run for the Pony Express. Now, against all odds, Sky must find a way to escape and reunite with his family.
A Horse Named Sky is a stand-alone companion novel to Rosanne Parry’s New York Times bestsellers A Wolf Called Wander and A Whale of the Wild. Chronicling the perils of westward expansion and the grueling Pony Express from the perspective of a wild horse, A Horse Named Sky is a gripping animal survival story about family, courage, trust, leadership, and loyalty. Impeccably researched and illustrated in black-and-white throughout, A Horse Named Sky is an excellent read-aloud for parents and teachers and a wonderful choice for fans of DreamWorks’ Spirit and Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty.
Includes black-and-white illustrations throughout, a map, and extensive back matter about wild horses and their habitats.
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Author: Paul M. Sparrow
Book: AWAKENING THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA: FDR’s War of Words with Charles Lindbergh – and the Battle to Save Democracy
Publishing: Pegasus Books (June 4, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Paul_M_Sparrow_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A powerful new work of history that brings President Roosevelt, his allies, and his adversaries to life as he fought to transform America from an isolationist bystander into the world’s first superpower.“In today’s troubled times, with authoritarianism escalating at home and abroad, Sparrow’s book reads like an all-hands-on-deck wakeup call. Highly recommended!”—Douglas Brinkley
Franklin Roosevelt awoke at 2:50 a.m. on September 1, 1939 to the news that Germany had invaded Poland, signaling the start of World War II. The president had warned for years that Hitler’s fascist regime posed an existential threat to democracy, but the American public remained stubbornly isolationist as fascist sympathizing groups, egged on by right wing media stars promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, plotted to overthrow the president.
The situation was dire, and Roosevelt quickly found himself facing an unexpected adversary: Charles Lindbergh. Wildly popular, the famed aviator’s youthful charm, plainspoken rhetoric, and media magnetism earned him a massive following as he led an aggressive attack on FDR’s policies. Millions listened to Linberg’s radio broadcasts and attended his rallies. Powerful individuals including William Randolph Hearst, Henry Ford, and members of Congress supported him. The German government provided secret funds to Lindbergh’s Nazi followers as he led the radical America First Committee in an effort to prevent Roosevelt from aiding England’s survival—and the world’s.
Awakening the Spirit of America brilliantly shows how Roosevelt overcame the forces aligned against him in a war against fascism. Paul Sparrow, former director of the FDR Presidential Library, reveals how FDR’s triumph of leadership was by no means a foregone conclusion. Roosevelt’s astute political maneuvers and persuasive use of language to preserve what he termed “the spirit of America” changed history and can still inspire today.
Sparrow brings readers into the rooms where key decisions were made, focusing on the crucial role words, media, and propaganda played in the transformation of America into the protector of the free world. Awakening the Spirit of America provides a riveting, inside account of FDR’s ultimate victory over pro-Nazi isolationists and provides vital insight into American history and an iconic president.
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Author: Peter Heller
Book: BURN: A Novel
Publishing: Knopf (August 13, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Peter_Heller_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars and The Last Ranger, a novel about two men—friends since boyhood—who emerge from the woods of rural Maine to a dystopian country racked by bewildering violenceEvery year, Jess and Storey have made an annual pilgrimage to the most remote corners of the country, where they camp, hunt, and hike, leaving much from their long friendship unspoken. Although the state of Maine has convulsed all summer with secession mania—a mania that has simultaneously spread across other states—Jess and Storey figure it’s a fight reserved for legislators or, worst-case scenario, folks in the capital.
But after weeks hunting off the grid, the men reach a small town and are shocked by what they find: a bridge blown apart, buildings burned to the ground, and bombed-out cars abandoned on the road. Trying to make sense of the sudden destruction all around them, they set their sights on finding their way home, dragging a wagon across bumpy dirt roads, scavenging from boats left in lakes, and dodging armed men—secessionists or U.S. military, they cannot tell—as they seek a path to safety. Then, a startling discovery drastically alters their path and the stakes of their escape.
Drenched in the beauty of the natural world and attuned to the specific cadences of male friendship, even here at the edge of doom, Burn is both a blistering warning about a divided country’s political strife and an ode to the salvation found in our chosen families.
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Author: Ellen Hopkins
Book: SYNC
Publishing: Nancy Paulsen Books (August 27, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Ellen_Hopkins_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From #1 NYT bestselling author Ellen Hopkins comes a new heartbreaking young adult novel in verse about twins separated in the foster care system and the different paths their lives take.Seventeen-year-old twins Storm and Lake have always been in perfect sync. They faced the worst a parent could do and survived it together. In the wake of their mother’s rejection, they’ve spent the last five years moving from foster home to foster home—sometimes placed together, sometimes apart.
After being separated from his sister once again, Storm is devastated. He’s the older brother and promised to always take care of Lake. But after a stint in juvie, his newest placement has him feeling almost hopeful. His foster dad is kind, and his girlfriend, Jaidyn, is the first person other than Lake he feels he can trust. But when Jaidyn is sexually assaulted by a violent ex, it pushes Storm over the edge. He retaliates and lands back in lockup—and he fears this time it will be for good. He wishes he could talk to Lake, but he doesn’t know where she is, and he’ s now feeling more alone and out of sync than ever before.
Lake, like Storm, has found her own happiness in a relationship with someone new—her fellow foster, Parker. Life with Parker is never boring, but Parker has her own scars. She can be withdrawn and unpredictable, and that can be dangerous, especially after Parker convinces Lake to run away from their Bible-thumping fosters after they are caught in a compromising position. With no money, shelter, or ID, they’re living on the streets. Lake thinks of Storm and his promise to take care of her, and wonders where he could be now.
Told in dual perspectives through unsent letters, at turns heartbreaking and always honest, this latest novel in verse from #1 New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins is a searing and unforgettable account of two teens caught in the teeth of the foster care system, fighting their way out and back to each other.
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Author: M.P. Woodward
Book: TOM CLANCY SHADOW WAR: A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (August 20, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/MP_Woodward_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Surviving a helicopter crash in the Vietnamese Highlands is only the start of the challenges facing Jack Ryan, Jr., in the latest propulsive thriller of this #1 New York Times bestselling series.
The vibrant economy of the new Vietnam is a shiny lure for Western capital. Companies are racing to uncover ideal opportunities. Not wanting to be left behind, Hendley Associates has sent their best analyst, Jack Ryan, Jr., to mine for investment gold. And he may have found some in a rare earth mining company—GeoTech.
But a trip with a Hendley colleague to the Highlands to observe the company’s operations takes a treacherous turn when their helicopter is shot down. Some things haven’t changed, and Vietnam is still the plaything of powerful neighbors. The Chinese are determined to keep Jack from finding the truth about what exactly is being processed at the isolated factory.
Now Jack is in a race for his life. He’s got to stay one step ahead of a pack of killers while supporting his wounded friend. He’ll get no help from the government, because in the jungle, it’s the shadow state that rules.
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Author: Pedro Domingos
Book: 2040: A Political Satire
Publishing: BookBaby (August 20, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Pedro_Domingos_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“I told you not to read books like this.” ―Your MomWhen AI and the culture wars collide, hilarity ensues.
The 2040 presidential election is unlike any in US history. The Republican candidate is an AI named PresiBot, created by a tech startup, KumbAI, who are in deeply over their heads. The Democratic candidate is a fake Native American chief seeking to abolish the United States. What could go wrong?
With PresiBot plummeting in the polls and tech giants like Happinet scheming to take over, KumbAI’s brash CEO Ethan Burnswagger and reluctant CTO Arvind Subramanian struggle to keep their company, their friendship―and their lives―under control. But the center cannot hold, and KumbAI, the campaign and America careen inexorably toward disaster.
Fast-paced and dialogue-driven, as befits our ADHD age, 2040 is a scathing critique of the current state of America―from the tech giants’ all-encompassing empires and the fear and hype surrounding AI to the invasion of the mainstream by ever-kookier political ideas. Set in a dystopian San Francisco in a near future we can all too easily anticipate, it features characters, entities and incidents whose resemblance to actual ones may or may not be purely coincidental.
If you want to have wicked fun while discovering what AI really is, how the tech industry works, where our deepening polarization might lead us, and―most important―how to break out of this cycle, this is the book for you.
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Author: Steve Wiegand
Book: THE UNCOMMON LIFE OF DANNY O’CONNELL: A Tale of Baseball Cards, “Average” Players and the True Value of America’s Game
Publishing: Bancroft Press (July 30, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Steve_Wiegand_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
In “The Uncommon Life of Danny O’Connell,” the author explores the life of Danny O’Connell, a player often overlooked in the annals of baseball history due to his status as a “common” card in the collecting world. O’Connell’s story is much more than his on-field performance; it’s a tale of the human spirit, embodying dreams, disappointments, and the unnoticed grandeur of an ordinary life.
Through an engaging narrative, the book offers a window into America’s pastime during its “Golden Era,” providing insights into a time when baseball was not just a sport but a cultural cornerstone that shaped and reflected the American experience.
The work goes beyond the statistics and perceived value of baseball cards to delve into O’Connell’s life, from his upbringing in Paterson, New Jersey, through his professional career marked by significant but underrecognized achievements, to his endeavors beyond baseball, including his talents in singing, shuffleboard, and public speaking.
The narrative weaves together baseball history, the evolution of sports memorabilia collecting, and a personal journey of rediscovery, challenging readers to reconsider the worth of an individual’s contributions both on and off the field.
Far from a mere sports biography, the book is an homage to the everyday heroes of baseball and a critique of reducing complex lives to mere numbers or collectible items. It is a celebration of the overlooked and undervalued, urging a reevaluation of what makes a life uncommonly extraordinary.
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Author: Brian Freeman
Book: Robert Ludlum’s THE BOURNE SHADOW: A Jason Bourne Novel
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (July 16, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Brian_Freeman_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
When secrets from Bourne’s past come to light, he may be the next thing that’s buried in this latest entry in the legendary New York Times bestselling series.It’s been over a decade since Nash Rollins recruited a brilliant, talented, but disaffected young man named David Webb to join Treadstone. Webb became the agent known as Cain—and later took on the identity of Jason Bourne.
That violent winter—which included Cain’s first mission for Treadstone—was also a story of betrayal in ways that David never knew. So after the injury that erased Bourne’s whole life, Nash lied about the circumstances of David’s recruitment to Treadstone. He was afraid that learning the truth might drive Bourne out of the agency forever.
But now, when Bourne meets a woman who recognizes him as David Webb, the secrets of those days begin to come out—and Bourne is forced to confront the dangerous ghosts of a past he doesn’t even remember.
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Author: K.A. Cobell
Book: LOOKING FOR SMOKE
Publishing: Heartdrum (June 4, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/KA_Cobell_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
In her powerful debut novel, Looking for Smoke, author K. A. Cobell (Blackfeet) weaves loss, betrayal, and complex characters into a thriller that will illuminate, surprise, and engage readers until the final word. A must-pick for readers who enjoy books by Angeline Boulley and Karen McManus!
When local girl Loren includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor Loren’s missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends on the Blackfeet reservation.
Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered.
Because the four members of the Giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation. And all of them—Mara, Loren, Brody, and Eli—have a complicated history with Samantha.
Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.
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Author: Ruth Bonapace
Book: THE BULGARIAN TRAINING MANUAL
Publishing: CLASH Books (June 4, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Ruth_Bonapace_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The Bulgarian Training Manual is a comic novel that tells the story of Tina in her quest to find her true parents and jeans that fit.
With the help of a mysterious book with magical powers, Tina makes her way from her waterlogged apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey, to an Oz-like journey to Bulgaria and back. Our heroine is the catalyst for a final contest that is part body-builder pose-off and part poetry slam.
The novel is a sly and comic look at self-improvement, our self-doubts and fervent dreams, and our endless internal yammering. Those who follow The Bulgarian Training Manual add more than muscle. They become poets.
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Author: Mark Greaney
Book: SENTINEL
Publishing: Berkley (June 25, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Mark_Greaney_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
An African coup may force Josh Duffy to choose between his mission and his family in this intense thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Gray Man series.Josh Duffy and his wife Nikki are both working for the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service providing protection for diplomats in the field. They’ve been sent to Ghana with a team of US embassy personnel who are there to highlight American commitment to the construction of a new dam.
Since Ghana is a stable democracy, the Duffy children have come along for a short vacation. But stability proves to be fleeting when a Chinese plan to embarrass the US means the destruction of the dam. Now Josh and his protectees are on the run caught between a Chinese hit squad and a rebel army.
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Author: Salah Bachir
Book: FIRST TO LEAVE THE PARTY: My Life with Ordinary People who Happen to be Famous
Publishing: Signal (October 17, 2023)
Click HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Salah_Bachir_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLERA marvelous and compulsively readable collection of stories from the life of Salah Bachir — philanthropist, art collector, movie industry insider — who, through his sheer joy of life, art, giving back, and human interaction, has endeared him to some of the most famous and creative people in recent times.
Salah Bachir’s encounters with stars who have passed through his beloved Toronto over the years opens on a backyard garden barbecue with Marlon Brando, and bread continues to be broken with icons as fascinating and seemingly disparate as Muhammad Ali and Liberace, Margaret Atwood and Cesar Chavez, Andy Warhol and Princess Margaret, to name just a few. But the true literary coup is that the biggest, brightest star we encounter is the author himself.
Alan Cumming
Salah is the patron saint for all of us who are full of curiosity, hungry for celebration, horny for fun, and who won’t stop until every need is fulfilled. His appetite and passion for life is voracious. His ability to transform those passions into making life better for others is even more impressive.
Atom Egoyan
Salah Bachir, who immigrated to Canada from Lebanon in the 1960s, has been a gay activist who has worked in the film world for over four decades. While this has given him undeniable front-row access to Hollywood’s biggest stars, it is Salah’s personal charm and kindness, his philanthropy, his overall style (think hats, scarves, brooches, pearls, diamonds) and deep involvement in the art world that has made him a friend, companion, confidante, and/or lover to so many — including Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Joan Rivers, Mary Tyler Moore, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Edward Albee, Orson Welles, Aretha Franklin, Norman Jewison, and Elizabeth Taylor — although it’s true that Katharine Hepburn once turned him down, very nicely.
Collected here in this wonderful book are personal stories of them all — some short, some long, some surprising, others juicy, and all fascinating. Through them we get to know Salah, a larger-than-life character that embodies the many worlds he shapes — the kind of person it would be hard to make up if he didn’t already exist.
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Author: Joanna Ho (Illustrated by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya)
Book: WE WHO PRODUCE PEARLS: An Anthem for Asian America
Publishing: Orchard Books (April 16, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Joanna_Ho_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author, Joanna Ho, comes an uplifting call to action that highlights Asian American history, paired with vibrant and colorful illustrations by artist and activist, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya.In Joanna Ho’s true classic style, she creates a poetic ode that celebrates Asian American communities and their history. We Who Produce Pearls, is an anthem for Asian America that celebrates the richness and diversity within the Asian American identity and serves as a reminder of our self worth, our legacy and most of all, our destiny. Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s signature bright and bold palette brings to light the strength and power within us all, creating a mesmerizing, stunning, and magical masterpiece that proves how we can shape our pain and struggle into one of joy and power. Together, Joanna and Amanda remind readers to rise up, speak out, and step into power.The post JOANNA HO – WE WHO PRODUCE PEARLS: An Anthem for Asian America appeared first on KSCJ 1360.
Author: Lexi Blake
Book: MY ROYAL SHOWMANCE: A Park Avenue Promise Novel
Publishing: Blue Box Press (June 4, 2024)
Click HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Lexi_Blake_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From New York Times bestselling author Lexi Blake, discover The Park Avenue Promise Series…Three young women make a pact in high school—
to always be friends and to one day make it big in Manhattan.
Anika Fox knows exactly where she wants to be, and it’s not on the set of a reality TV dating show. She’s working her way up at the production company she works for and she’s close to achieving some of her dreams. The big boss just wants one thing from her. She’s got a potential problem with the director of The King Takes a Bride and she wants Anika to pose as a production assistant and report back.
As the king of a tiny European country, Luca St. Marten knows the world views him as one of the pampered royalty of the world. It couldn’t be further from the truth. His country is hurting and he’s right there on the front lines with his citizens. When he’s asked to do a dating show, his counselors point out that it could bring tourism back to Ralavia. It goes against his every desire, but he agrees.
When one of the contestants drops out at the last minute, Anika finds herself replacing the potential princess. She’s sure she’ll be asked to leave the first night, but Luca keeps picking her again and again. Suddenly she finds herself in the middle of a made-for-TV fantasy, and she’s unsure what’s real and what’s simply reality TV.
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Author: Robin Peguero
Book: ONE IN THE CHAMBER: A Novel
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (March 26, 2024)
Click HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Robin_Peguero_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
On Capitol Hill, they work you to death.Cameron Leann is new to Washington, D.C. An Iowa farm boy without a penny to his name, Cam has joined a group of affluent junior staffers working for a powerful cohort of U.S. Senators known as The Gang of Six. Liz Frost, the group’s charismatic leader, teases and strings Cam along as he grows increasingly infatuated with her. Heir to a political dynasty, Randy Lancaster pushes Cam to his limits with his penchant for booze, drugs, and meaningless flings. Charlie James, Liz’s linebacker boyfriend, keeps Cam at a distance, eyeing the newcomer with suspicion.
All of them have one thing in common. They hate their bosses.
As the Gang of Six takes up the rushed nomination of the first Black chief justice to the Supreme Court, Cam and his friends are plotting against them. But in the game of politics, one’s motivations are never as they seem—especially true for Cam, the enigmatic figure at the center of it all.
When a bombshell revelation threatens to sink the President’s Supreme Court pick, the Gang of Six fractures, pitting senator against senator in a confirmation battle for the ages. Alliances shift with the wind. Everyone is lying to everyone. And on Election Night, one senator will end up dead.
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Author: James Comey
Book: WESTPORT: A Crime Novel
Publishing: Mysterious Press (May 21, 2024)
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https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/James_Comey_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Former FBI director James Comey takes readers into the world of high finance and corporate espionage in this riveting thriller.
A red canoe sits abandoned on Seymour Rock, right where the Saugatuck River hits the Long Island Sound. The elegantly dressed corpse of a woman lies inside….
It’s been two years since Nora Carleton left the job she loved at the US Attorney’s Office to become lead counsel at Saugatuck Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. The career change also meant a change of scenery, relocating her to Westport, Connecticut, fifty miles north of New York City. But it was worth it to get her daughter, Sophie, away from the city. Plus, she likes the people she works with. Especially Helen, who recruited Nora because of her skills as an investigator.
Then Nora’s new life falls apart when a coworker is murdered and she becomes the lead suspect. Nora calls in her old colleagues from the US Attorney’s Office, Mafia investigator Benny Dugan and attorney Carmen Garcia. To clear Nora’s name, Benny and Carmen hunt for the true killer’s motive, but it seems nearly everyone at Saugatuck has secrets worth killing for. As Benny sets out to interrogate her colleagues, Nora examines her history with the company to determine who set her up to take the fall.
A suspenseful and intriguing tale of high finance and murder, Westport features the characters first introduced in James Comey’s debut novel Central Park West but can also be read on its own. It further establishes Comey as “a bold new talent in the mystery genre” (Harlan Coben).
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Author: Heather Gudenkauf
Book: EVERYONE IS WATCHING: A Novel
Publishing: Park Row (March 26, 2024)
Click HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Heather_Gudenkauf_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“Big Brother meets Clue in this utterly original and incredibly tense locked-room mystery.” —May Cobb, author of A Likeable WomanA mysterious high-stakes game proves life-threatening in this twisty thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Overnight Guest
The Best Friend. The Confidant. The Senator. The Boyfriend. The Executive.
Five contestants have been chosen to compete for ten million dollars on the game show One Lucky Winner. The catch? None of them knows what (or who) to expect, and it will be live streamed all over the world. Completely secluded in an estate in Northern California, with strict instructions not to leave the property and zero contact with the outside world, the competitors start to feel a little too isolated.
When long-kept secrets begin to rise to the surface, the contestants realize this is no longer just a reality show—someone is out for blood. And the game can’t end until the world knows who the contestants really are…
And don’t miss these other enthralling thrillers by Heather Gudenkauf:
- The Weight of Silence
- These Things Hidden
- Little Mercies
- Missing Pieces
- Not a Sound
- Before She Was Found
- This is How I Lied
- The Overnight Guest The post HEATHER GUDENKAUF – EVERYONE IS WATCHING: A Novel appeared first on KSCJ 1360.
Author: Jennifer Donnelly
Book: BEASTLY BEAUTY
Publishing: Scholastic Press (May 7, 2024)
Click HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Jennifer_Donnelly_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Jennifer Donnelly comes a revolutionary, gender-swapped retelling of Beauty and the Beast that will forever change how you think about beauty, power, and what it really means to follow your heart.
What makes a girl “beastly?” Is it having too much ambition? Being too proud? Taking up too much space? Or is it just wanting something, anything, too badly?
That’s the problem Arabella faces when she makes her debut in society. Her parents want her to be sweet and compliant so she can marry well, but try as she might, Arabella can’t extinguish the fire burning inside her — the source of her deepest wishes, her wildest dreams.
When an attempt to suppress her emotions tragically backfires, a mysterious figure punishes Arabella with a curse, dooming her and everyone she cares about, trapping them in the castle. As the years pass, Arabella abandons hope. The curse is her fault — after all, there’s nothing more “beastly” than a girl who expresses her anger — and the only way to break it is to find a boy who loves her for her true self: a cruel task for a girl who’s been told she’s impossible to love.
When a handsome thief named Beau makes his way into the castle, the captive servants are thrilled, convinced he is the one to break the curse. But Beau — spooked by the castle’s strange and forbidding ladies-in-waiting, and by the malevolent presence that stalks its corridors at night — only wants to escape. He learned long ago that love is only an illusion. If Beau and Arabella have any hope of breaking the curse, they must learn to trust their wounded hearts, and realize that the cruelest prisons of all are the ones we build for ourselves.
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Author: Caroline Cleveland
Book: WHEN CICADAS CRY: A Novel
Publishing: Union Square & Co. (May 7, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Caroline_Cleveland_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
In this stunning debut by a South Carolina attorney, Zach Stander, a lawyer with a past, and Addie Stone, his indomitable detective and lover, find themselves entangled in secrets, lies, and murder in a small Southern town.A high-profile murder case—A white woman has been bludgeoned to death with an altar cross in a rural church on Cicada Road in Walterboro, South Carolina. Sam Jenkins, a Black man, is found covered in blood, kneeling over the body. In a state already roiling with racial tension, this is not only a murder case, but a powder keg.
A haunting cold case—Two young women are murdered on quiet Edisto Beach, an hour southeast of Walterboro, and the killer disappears without a trace. Thirty-four years later the mystery remains unsolved. Could there be a connection to Stander’s case?
A killer who’s watching—Stander takes on Jenkins’s defense, but he’s up against a formidable solicitor with powerful allies. Worse, his client is hiding a bombshell secret. When Addie Stone reopens the cold case, she discovers more long-buried secrets in this small town. Would someone kill again to keep them?
Ideal for fans of mystery, suspense, and thrillers in the vein of Karin Slaughter’s Pretty Girls and Stacy Willingham’s A Flicker in the Dark, as well as for readers who followed the high-profile Murdaugh murder trial, held in the same small town as in When Cicadas Cry.
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Author: Mike Papantonio (with Christopher Paulos)
Book: SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY: A Legal Thriller
Publishing: Arcade (March 19, 2024)
Click HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mike_Papantonio_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Suspicious Activity is an epic drama of intrigue, suspense, thrills, and legal combat—torn out of today’s headlines.“The purpose of the lawsuit is to fully expose the bank’s willing support to groups that are killing Americans—and others—overseas.” This announcement by attorney Nicholas “Deke” Deketomis sets up the gladiatorial arena between Big Banking and a team of well-meaning lawyers.
The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars introduced the concept of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and EFPs (Explosively Formed Penetrators) that seriously maim or kill. It appears that these bombs are still being made and utilized by terrorists overseas. Who is funding them? Could it possibly be a large global bank with a major branch in New York? Is a reverse money laundering scheme in place that allows money transactions to bypass Department of Justice sanctions?
Deke and his colleagues—co-counsel Michael Carey and investigators Carol Morris and Jake Rutledge—set out to uncover the deceit and bring the white collar criminals to justice. With the help of Michael’s friend and war veteran, Joel Hartbeck—who first blows the whistle against the bank—the Deketomis team quickly discovers that they may have tackled more than they bargained for. A dangerous, well-funded paramilitary group might be involved in protecting the bank’s interests, and Hartbeck soon goes missing. As Deke’s lawsuit progresses, the sudden appearance of IEDs and EFPs on US highways cause death and destruction. Who is behind this evil?
Readers who devour the financial-action-legal thrillers of Joseph Finder, Stephen Frey, and James Grippando will enjoy Suspicious Activity.
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Author: Philip Cioffari
Book: NIGHT AND ITS LONGINGS
Publishing: Livingston Press (March 26, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Philip_Cioffari_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Jake Garrett, a writer living in New York’s Greenwich Village, is paid a surprising late-night visit from the husband whose wife, Vera, Jake had an affair with ten years earlier. Even more surprising: the husband asks Jake to help find her, for she’s disappeared. Jake is thrust back into a world he thought had been lost to him forever. Jake’s undying love for Vera propels his search for her through the night-time streets of the city and, finally, to the remote beaches of the Carolina coast. This is a tale of lost love, adultery, and crime told in a taut, lyrical style—keeping the love story and the mystery inseparably intertwined. At its heart pulses the greatest mystery of all: the Self—why we do what we do, how we make amends for a life gone wrong, and how in the darkness of night, we see ourselves in the clearest light.
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Author: Lisa Gardner
Book: STILL SEE YOU EVERYWHERE: A Novel
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (March 12, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Lisa_Gardner_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
An instant New York Times bestseller!My name is Frankie Elkin, and finding missing people is what I do.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner comes a harrowing locked-room style thriller set on a remote island. Frankie Elkin is an expert at finding missing people, but not even she could have anticipated this latest request—to locate the long-lost sister of a female serial killer facing execution in three weeks’ time.
“The very definition of the word unputdownable.” — Tess Gerritsen
Frankie Elkin is an expert at finding the missing persons that the rest of the world has forgotten, but even she couldn’t have anticipated this latest request—to locate the long-lost sister of a female serial killer facing execution in three weeks’ time.
She has called herself “death,” but people called her the devil.
The case was sensational. Kaylee Pierson had confessed from the very beginning, waived all appeals. Despite the media’s chronicling of her tragic circumstances—the childhood spent with a violent father—no one could find sympathy for “the Beautiful Butcher” who had led eighteen men home from bars before viciously slitting their throats.
Now, with only twenty-one days left to live, Pierson has finally received a lead on the whereabouts of the sister who was kidnapped over a decade ago, and she needs Frankie’s help to find her. The Beautiful Butcher’s offer:
When was the last time your search ended with finding the living?
Unable to resist the chance for a rescue, Frankie takes on Pierson’s request. Twelve years ago, five-year-old Leilani went missing in Hawaii. The main suspect? Pierson’s tech mogul ex-boyfriend, Sanders MacManus. Now, on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific—the site of MacManus’s latest vanity project—fresh evidence has appeared. In order to learn the truth and possibly save a young woman’s life, Frankie must go undercover at the isolated base camp. Her challenge: A dozen strangers. Countless dangerous secrets. Zero means of calling for help. And then the storm rolls in…
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Author: Ann E. Burg
Book: FORCE OF NATURE: A Novel of Rachel Carson
Publishing: Scholastic Press (March 5, 2024)
CLICK HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ann_E_Burg_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A beautiful and hopeful story of how a young impassioned naturalist grows up to change the world. For everyone who cares about our fragile planet.
Rachel was a girl who loved
science and the sea,
books and writing
and all the creatures of the world.
Rachel was quiet,
a listener by nature.
But when she saw problems,
she could not remain silent.
Some people thought girls
shouldn’t be scientists.
They thought girls
shouldn’t use their voices
to question or challenge,
even to protect
all the creatures of the world.
Luckily Rachel didn’t listen
to them.
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Author: Steve Berry
Book: THE ATLAS MANEUVER (A Cotton Malone Novel)
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (February 20, 2024)
CLICK HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Steve_Berry_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From celebrated New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry comes the latest Cotton Malone adventure, in which Cotton unravels a mystery from World War II involving a legendary lost treasure, worth billions, known as Yamashita’s Gold.
- In the waning months of World War II, Japan hid vast quantities of gold and other stolen valuables in boobytrapped underground caches all across the Philippines. By 1947 some of that loot was recovered, not by treasure hunters, but by the United States government, which told no one about the find. Instead, those assets were stamped classified, shipped to Europe, and secretly assimilated into something called the Black Eagle Trust.
Present day. Retired Justice Department operative, Cotton Malone, is in Switzerland doing a favor for a friend. But what was supposed to be a simple operation turns violent and Cotton is thrust into a war between the world’s oldest bank and the CIA, a battle that directly involves the Black Eagle Trust. He quickly discovers that everything hinges on a woman from his past, who suddenly reappears harboring a host of explosive secrets centering around bitcoin. The cryptocurrency is being quietly weaponized, readied for an assault on the world’s financial systems, a calculated move that will have devastating consequences. Cotton has no choice. He has to act. But at what cost?
From the stolid banking halls of Luxembourg, to the secret vaults of Switzerland, and finally up into the treacherous mountains of southern Morocco, Cotton Malone is stymied at every turn. Each move he makes seems wrong, and nothing works, until he finally comes face-to-face with the Atlas Maneuver.
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Author: C.J. Box
Book: THREE-INCH TEETH: A Joe Pickett Novel
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (February 27, 2024)
CLICK HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/C.J._Box_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett faces two different kinds of rampaging beasts—one animal, one human—in this riveting new novel from #1 New York Times bestseller C.J. Box.A rogue grizzly bear has gone on a rampage—killing, among others, the potential fiancé of Joe’s daughter. At the same time, Dallas Cates, who Joe helped lock up years ago, is released from prison with a special list tattooed on his skin. He wants revenge on the people who sent him away: the six people he blames for the deaths of his entire family and the loss of his reputation and property.
Using the grizzly attacks as cover, Cates sets out to methodically check off his list. The problem is, both Nate Romanowski and Joe Pickett are on it.
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Author: Sheriff Tony Thompson MPA-CJ
Book: ANYPLACE BUT HERE: The Uncomfortable Convergence Between Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System
Publishing: Hog Press (December 21, 2023)
CLICK HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Tony_Thompson_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
If someone had told me in 2008 that the single most time-consuming issue facing me as one of the newest of America’s three thousand-and-eighty-one sheriffs would be mental health, I would have laughed. I was the SWAT team leader. I was a drug education officer on patrol and a street-level narcotics interdiction officer for a larger (by Iowa standards) sheriff’s office. I would do the occasional court-ordered, emergency mental health committal and the random transport from one health care facility to another mental health facility on a judge’s order from time to time. But that was the extent of my engagement with real, actual, and actionable knowledge of law enforcement and mental health care as a unit. Sure, you would see the news about the mentally ill, you’d encounter the occasional ‘crazy’ guy or gal, and you’d pray that you never had to encounter someone on patrol who wanted a ‘suicide-by-cop’ scenario to play out in real life.
[…]
Today, mental illness and how it intersects with my duties as one of Iowa’s ninety-nine elected sheriffs influences my obligations on a daily basis. I manage nearly three-hundred residential beds in our jail and over sixty percent of them are occupied by someone with a significant mental health diagnosis. The number of emergency mental health committals have steadily risen since I took office in 2009; and our state has slowly and steadily ‘alleviated’ itself of its obligations in the mental health care arena, opting instead to delegate that responsibility down to the counties or mental health regions for which they provide minimal financial or other kinds of supports. They have shut down state run mental health hospitals, privatized mental health care insurance, decentralized the Department of Human Services, and gutted both funding and staffing for mental health care over the past twenty years to create a perfect storm of convergence whereby a nationwide crisis has become a ‘hometown doorstep issue’ for my colleagues and those of us in law enforcement.
[…]
In America today, the fastest growing population in prison is not Blacks, Hispanics, or toothless methamphetamine addicts…it is the mentally ill. We are criminalizing our brothers and our sisters, our neighbors and our friends at an alarming and increasing pace…and are we not challenged to be their keepers? At a truly visceral level, this problem perplexes me to my very being. I am hurt and disappointed, no, perhaps that is too small an assertion for where I find myself standing as a sheriff. Disappointed is a father when a child forgets to pick up the Legos and you ‘find’ them at 11:00pm on your way to the bathroom, stuck to the bottom pad of your left foot. I am not disappointed, I am disrespected. That is perhaps closer to the feelings of frustration, rage, anger, insult, and the hundreds of other feelings that boil just beneath the surface of my calm façade as a law enforcement administrator. You see, I’ve watched legislators pass gun bills that no one really wanted in just one session, yet for twenty years in my state we’ve tried to reform mental health delivery systems that nearly every state citizen recognizes is necessary, to no avail.
[…]
If this book helps to add fuel to someone’s efforts, if my words provide credence to a person’s argument of need for support, or bolsters strength in the observations regarding the importance of mental health reform, great! If something in my stories and narrations cause someone to pay attention and listen to the choir that is likely reading this, giving their real-life experiences more credibility, then all my efforts are well worth it. My goal is to simply champion the message that change must happen. And we can all be those champions of change.
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Author: Mark Greaney
Book: THE CHAOS AGENT: A Gray Man Novel
Publishing: Berkley (February 20, 2024)
CLICK HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Mark_Greaney_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Artificial intelligence leads to shockingly real danger for the Gray Man in this latest entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.
A car accident in Japan.
A drowning in Seoul.
A home invasion in Boston.
Someone is killing the world’s leading experts on robotics and artificial intelligence. Is it a tech company trying to eliminate the competition or is it something even more sinister?
After all, artificial intelligence may be the deadliest battlefield gamechanger since the creation of gunpowder. The first nation to field weapons that can act at the speed of computer commands will rule the battlefield.
It’s an irresistible lure for most, but not for the Gray Man. His quest for a quiet life has led him to Central America where he and his lover, Zoya Zakharova, have assumed new identities. With a list of enemies that includes billionaires, terrorists, and governments, they need to keep a low profile, but the world’s deadliest assassin can’t expect to hide out forever.
Eventually, they’re tracked down and offered a job by an old acquaintance of Zoya’s. He needs their help extracting a Russian scientist who is on the kill list. They reject the offer, but just being seen with him is enough to put assassins on their trail.
Now, they’re back on the run, but no matter which way they turn, it’s clear that whoever’s tracking them is always going to be one step ahead. Since flight’s no longer possible, fight is the only option left, and no one fights dirtier than the Gray Man.
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Author: Tony Keith Jr.
Book: HOW THE BOOGEYMAN BECAME A POET
Publishing: Katherine Tegen Books (February 6, 2024)
CLICK HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Tony_Keith_Jr_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Poet, writer, and hip-hop educator Tony Keith Jr. makes his debut with a powerful YA memoir in verse, tracing his journey from being a closeted gay Black teen battling poverty, racism, and homophobia to becoming an openly gay first-generation college student who finds freedom in poetry. Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo, George M. Johnson, and Jacqueline Woodson.
Tony dreams about life after high school, where his poetic voice can find freedom on the stage and page. But the Boogeyman has been following Tony since he was six years old. First, the Boogeyman was after his Blackness, but Tony has learned It knows more than that: Tony wants to be the first in his family to attend college, but there’s no path to follow. He also has feelings for boys, desires that don’t align with the script he thinks is set for him and his girlfriend, Blu.
Despite a supportive network of family and friends, Tony doesn’t breathe a word to anyone about his feelings. As he grapples with his sexuality and moves from high school to college, he struggles with loneliness while finding solace in gay chat rooms and writing poetry. But how do you find your poetic voice when you are hiding the most important parts of yourself? And how do you escape the Boogeyman when it’s lurking inside you?
The post TONY KEITH JR. – HOW THE BOOGEYMAN BECAME A POET appeared first on KSCJ 1360.
Author: Hannah Durkin
Book: THE SURVIVORS OF THE CLOTILDA: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade
Publishing: Amistad (January 30, 2024)
CLICK HERE to buy the book!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Hannah_Durkin_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Joining the ranks of Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Zora Neale Hurston’s rediscovered classic Barracoon, an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivors—the last documented survivors of any slave ship—whose lives diverged and intersected in profound ways.
The Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860—more than half a century after the passage of a federal law banning the importation of captive Africans, and nine months before the beginning of the Civil War. The last of its survivors lived well into the twentieth century. They were the last witnesses to the final act of a terrible and significant period in world history.
In this epic work, Dr. Hannah Durkin tells the stories of the Clotilda’s 110 captives, drawing on her intensive archival, historical, and sociological research. The Survivors of the Clotilda follows their lives from their kidnappings in what is modern-day Nigeria through a terrifying 45-day journey across the Middle Passage; from the subsequent sale of the ship’s 103 surviving children and young people into slavery across Alabama to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement in Selma; from the foundation of an all-Black African Town (later Africatown) in Northern Mobile—an inspiration for writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including Zora Neale Hurston—to the foundation of the quilting community of Gee’s Bend—a Black artistic circle whose cultural influence remains enormous.
An astonishing, deeply compelling tapestry of history, biography, and social commentary, The Survivors of the Clotilda is a tour de force that deepens our knowledge and understanding of the Black experience and of America and its tragic past.
The Survivors of the Clotilda includes 30 artworks and photographs.
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Author: E.A. Aymar
Book: WHEN SHE LEFT: A Thriller
CLICK HERE to buy the book!
Publishing: Thomas & Mercer (February 6, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/E_A_Aymar_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A young couple fleeing a criminal family confronts a reluctant assassin in this heart-pounding thriller from E.A. Aymar.
When Melissa Cruz falls hard for a dreamy-eyed photographer named Jake, she can’t resist the urge to run away with him. The problem is that she already has a boyfriend, a rising star in his family’s crime organization. Betrayed and humiliated, Chris isn’t going to just let her go.
To find Melissa, Chris turns to Lucky Wilson, one of his family’s professional assassins. But Lucky has his own problems. After years of lying about his day job, his marriage is in shambles and he suffers from relentless panic attacks. He’ll do this job if Chris will let him out of the killing life.
Lucky knows this is his best chance at salvaging the home life he always craved. But Melissa and Jake aren’t going to abandon their chance at something real―something they’ve both been lacking in their lives. But they aren’t the only ones desperate to survive, and a powerful criminal family isn’t the only danger.
And soon, it’s clear that an unlikely partnership might be the only way for any of them to make it out alive…
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Author: Joanna Ho with Liz Kleinrock (Illustrated by Dung Ho)
Book: EYES THAT WEAVE THE WORLD’S WONDERS
Publishing: HarperCollins (January 23, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Joanna_Ho_Liz_Kleinrock_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“Ho now creates a beautiful book about family: what makes individuals and what connects us to one another. This book is a perfect addition to any children’s shelf, whether aimed at families, adoption, multicultural stories, or topics of love and acceptance.” —School Library Journal (starred review)
From New York Times bestselling Joanna Ho, of Eyes that Kiss in the Corners, and award-winning educator Liz Kleinrock comes a powerful companion picture book about adoption and family. A young girl who is a transracial adoptee learns to love her Asian eyes and finds familial connection and meaning through them, even though they look different from her parents’.
Her family bond is deep and their connection is filled with love. She wonders about her birth mom and comes to appreciate both her birth culture and her adopted family’s culture, for even though they may seem very different, they are both a part of her, and that is what makes her beautiful. She learns to appreciate the differences in her family and celebrate them.
An Amazon Best Book of the Month for January 2024!
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Author: Mark J. Neary
Book: HOW CAN YOU TELL IF A LAWYER IS LYING?: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Mark J. Neary (Six Decades of Law, Laughs, Love and Lust, Some Suspenseful and Sensual Subchapters, and an Awful Amount of Alliteration)
Publishing: Independently published (January 18, 2024)
CLICK ON THIS LINK TO BUY THE BOOK!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Mark_Neary1_2_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From a small town to a small college; from the Big Ten to the big city; this is the story of Mark Neary. A tailender of the baby boom generation, he stumbles through a life and world beyond his dreams, expectations, and understanding. While living around the world, or at least in every state in the Midwest which starts with an “I”, he gathers stories great and small which all add up to a life full of joy, heartache, and all the other emotions that make us human. Or at least humanoid.
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Author: Nick Petrie
Book: THE PRICE YOU PAY (A Peter Ash Novel)
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (February 6, 2024)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Nick_Petrie_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Peter Ash must follow his closest friend, Lewis, into the criminal underworld when secrets from the past threaten everything they hold dear in this propulsive new thriller from the bestselling and award-winning series.
Lewis has helped Peter Ash out of more trouble than Peter cares to remember. So he doesn’t hesitate when Lewis asks a favor in return. Lewis has left his criminal past behind, but a former associate may be in trouble, and he and Peter must drive into the teeth of a blizzard to find him. When they discover blood in the snow and a smoldering cabin, both men know things are bad. Then they learn that someone has stolen notebooks full of incriminating secrets about Lewis’s long-ago crimes, and realize the situation is much worse than they’d thought.
To save Lewis’s wife, Dinah, and her two boys, Lewis and Peter must find the notebooks. With Peter’s longtime girlfriend, June Cassidy, they begin the search—facing ruthless and violent foes at each turn, including one powerful person who will stop at nothing for revenge. Will Peter and Lewis be able to keep that dark past buried? Or will they need to step into the darkness to save the people they love most?
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Author: Celeste L. Edmunds (with Richard Paul Evans)
Book: GARBAGE BAG GIRL
Publishing: Ascendt Publishing (November 15, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Celeste_Edmunds_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
This book is an honest and vulnerable first-person account of Celeste Edmunds a young woman who was raised by drug addict parents and, at a young age, learned to survive and protect her siblings among rapists and drug dealers. Eventually the state separated the family and Celeste was adopted, alone, into a dysfunctional, fractured home where she was treated, by a sadistic and manipulating mother, as an unwanted outsider. Contemplating taking her abusers life, she eventually ran away, finding shelter wherever she could, until a compassionate woman stepped in to give her a home and love. Ultimately, Garbage Bag Girl, is an unforgettable story of hope.
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Author: Deborah G. Plant
Book: OF GREED AND GLORY: In Pursuit of Freedom for All
Publishing: Amistad (January 9, 2024)debo
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Deborah_G_Plant_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A ground-breaking, personal exploration of America’s obsession with continuing human bondage from the editor of the New York Times–bestselling Barracoon.
Freedom and equality are the watchwords of American democracy. But like justice, freedom and equality are meaningless when there is no corresponding practical application of the ideals they represent. Physical, bodily liberty is fundamental to every American’s personal sovereignty. And yet, millions of Americans—including author Deborah Plant’s brother, whose life sentence at Angola Prison reveals a shocking current parallel to her academic work on the history of slavery in America—are deprived of these basic freedoms every day.
In her studies of Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah Plant became fascinated by Hurston’s explanation for the atrocities of the international slave trade. In her memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road, Hurston wrote: “But the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw, was: my people had sold me and the white people had bought me. . . . It impressed upon me the universal nature of greed and glory.” We look the other way when the basic human rights of marginalized and stigmatized groups are violated and desecrated, not realizing that only the practice of justice everywhere secures justice, for any of us, anywhere.
An active vigilance is required of those who would be and remain free; with Of Greed and Glory, Deborah Plant reveals the many ways in which slavery continues in America today and charts our collective course toward personal sovereignty for all.
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Book: REEF ROAD: A Novel
Author: Deborah Goodrich Royce
Publishing: Post Hill Press (January 9, 2024) – Paperback Edition
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Deborah_Goodrich_Royce_paperback_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A Publishers Weekly Bestseller
Named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2023
When a severed hand washes ashore in the wealthy enclave of Palm Beach, Florida, the lives of two women—a lonely writer obsessed with the unsolved murder of her mother’s best friend and a panicked wife whose husband has disappeared with their children—collide as the world shutters in the pandemic lockdown of 2020.
“Reef Road is magnificent. It feels utterly real, a novel of deeply personal context. It swerves between truth and lies—the lies that lead to an even deeper—and more devastating—truth. Though pure fiction, it reads as compellingly as a mixture of memoir and exposé. It has left me shaken to the core. Deborah Goodrich Royce writes with brilliant understanding of the mystery and occasional grace of trauma.” —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author
A young woman’s life seems perfect until her family goes missing. A writer lives alone with her dog and collects arcane murder statistics. What each of them stands to lose as they sneak around the do-not-enter tape blocking Reef Road beach is exposed by the steady tightening of the cincture encircling them.
In a nod to the true crime that inspired it, Deborah Goodrich Royce’s Reef Road probes unhealed generational scars in a wrenching and original work of fiction. It is both stunning and sexy and, like a bystander surprised by a curtain left open, you won’t be able to look away.
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Author: Patricia Cornwell
Book: UNNATURAL DEATH: A Scarpetta Novel
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (November 28, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Patricia_Cornwell_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Two mauled bodies in the woods. Top secret autopsies. The most chilling cases of Scarpetta’s career.
In this thrilling new installment of Patricia Cornwell’s #1 bestselling Scarpetta series, chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds herself in a Northern Virginia wilderness examining the remains of two campers wanted by federal law enforcement.
The victims have been savaged beyond recognition, and other evidence is terrifying and baffling, including a larger-than-life footprint.
After one of the most frightening body retrievals of her career, Scarpetta must discover who would commit murders this savage, and why.
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Author: James Martin, SJ
Book: COME FORTH: The Promise of Jesus’s Greatest Miracle
Publishing: HarperOne (September 5, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/James_Martin_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“James Martin—arguably our greatest writer-priest—has penned a genius meditation on the Raising of Lazarus. I came away with a renewed hope that grace alone can call me out of whatever tomb I’ve buried myself in.” —Mary Karr, author of The Liar’s Club and Lit: A Memoir
One of America’s most beloved spiritual leaders and the New York Times bestselling author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and Learning to Pray examines one of the most intriguing events in the New Testament—the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead—and explains its significance for us today.
In this wise and compassionate book, Father James Martin, SJ explores the story of Jesus’s greatest miracle—the raising of Lazarus from the dead—and what Jesus means when he calls each of us to “come forth.” Meditatively and carefully, Martin leads us verse by verse, offering profound reflections on Jesus’s lessons on love, family, sadness, frustration, fear, anger, freedom, and joy. Come Forth combines:
- Compelling analysis of the biblical text
- Insights about the historical setting of the story
- Spiritual lessons for today’s readers
- Meditations on Lazarus in art and the larger culture
- Stories from Martin’s travels through the Holy Land
As he explores these strands in depth, Martin helps us let go of the limiting beliefs that prevent us from experiencing God’s presence in our lives. We need only to open ourselves to the transformative story of Lazarus and trust that God can use it to free us to experience, like Lazarus, new life.
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Author: David Baldacci
Book: THE EDGE: A 6:20 Man Thriller
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (November 14, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/David_Baldacci_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The 6:20 Man is back, dropped by his handlers into a small coastal town in Maine to solve the murder of a CIA agent who knew America’s dirtiest secrets—can Travis Devine uncover the truth before his time runs out?
When CIA operative Jenny Silkwell is murdered in rural Maine, government officials have immediate concerns over national security. Her laptop and phone were full of state secrets that, in the wrong hands, endanger the lives of countless operatives. In need of someone who can solve the murder quickly and retrieve the missing information, the U.S. government knows just the chameleon they can call on.
Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine spent his time in the military preparing to take on any scenario, followed by his short-lived business career chasing shadows in the deepest halls of power, so his analytical mind makes him particularly well-suited for complex, high-stakes tasks. Taking down the world’s largest financial conspiracy proved his value, and in comparison, this case looks straightforward. Except small towns hold secrets and Devine finds himself an outsider again.
Devine must ingratiate himself with locals who have trusted each other their whole lives, and who distrust outsiders just as much. Dak, Jenny’s brother, who’s working to revitalize the town. Earl, the retired lobsterman who found Jenny’s body. And Alex, Jenny’s sister with a dark past of her own. As Devine gets to know the residents of Putnam, Maine, answers seem to appear and then transform into more questions. There’s a long history of secrets and those who will stop at nothing to keep them from being exposed. Leaving Devine with no idea who he can trust… and who wants him dead.
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Author: Laura Sims Book: HOW CAN I HELP YOU: A Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (July 18, 2023) Synopsis (from the Publisher): No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small-town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in […]
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Author: Rebecca McKanna Book: DON’T FORGET THE GIRL: A Novel Publishing: Sourcebooks Landmark (June 20, 2023) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “A heartbreaking story of female friendship, first love, and betrayal, Rebecca McKanna explodes onto the thriller scene. Absolutely phenomenal!” ―New York Times bestselling author Julie Clark We never remember the dead girls. We never forget […]
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Author: R. K. Russell Book: THE YARDS BETWEEN US: A Memoir of Life, Love, and Football Publishing: Andscape Books (May 16, 2023) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A groundbreaking memoir from professional NFL player, writer, and advocate R.K. Russell, who made history by becoming the first out active NFL player to identify as bisexual. In 2019, R.K. […]
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Author: Norman Solomon Book: WAR MADE INVISIBLE: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine Publishing: The New Press (June 13, 2023) Synopsis (from the Publisher): From the acclaimed veteran political analyst, a searing new exposé of how the American military, with the help of the media, conceals its perpetual war “No one […]
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Author: Riley Sager Book: THE ONLY ONE LEFT: A Novel Publishing: Dutton (June 20, 2023) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Named a summer book to watch by The Washington Post, Boston Globe, USA Today, Oprah, Paste, Country Living, and Nerd Daily “Propulsive … a dizzying Gothic whodunit.” —New York Times Book Review Bestselling author Riley Sager […]
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Author: Ashley Audrain Book: THE WHISPERS: A Novel Publishing: Pamela Dorman Books (June 6, 2023) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “Expertly, subtly and powerfully rendered….[The Whispers] delivers a sucker-punch ending you’ll have to read twice to believe.”—The New York Times Book Review “[An] electrifying…razor-sharp page-turner.” —Carley Fortune, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After […]
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Author: Ore Agbaje-Williams Book: THE THREE OF US: A Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (May 16, 2023) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “As short and sharp as a pairing knife . . . Moves along so briskly and with such sly wit . . . Deliciously wicked.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post Long-standing tensions between a […]
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Author: James Comey
Book: CENTRAL PARK WEST: A Crime Novel
Publishing: Mysterious Press (May 30, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/James_Comey_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A Newsweek and Reader’s Digest most-anticipated read of 2023.
In the thrilling first crime novel from the former director of the FBI, a murder investigation reveals deadly connections between high-ranking politicians and the mafia.
The gripping crime fiction debut from former FBI director James Comey takes readers deep inside the world of lawyers and investigators working to solve a murder while navigating the treacherous currents of modern politics and the mob.
When a years-long case against a powerful mobster finally cracks and an unimpeachable witness takes the stand, federal prosecutor Nora Carleton is looking forward to putting the defendant away for good. The mobster, though, has other plans. As the witness’s testimony concludes, a note is passed to the prosecution offering up information into the assassination of a disgraced former New York governor, murdered in his penthouse apartment just days before. It’s enough to blow the case wide open, and to send Nora into a high-stakes investigation of conspiracy, corruption, and danger.
Drawing from the author’s decades in federal law enforcement, including his years in Manhattan as a mob prosecutor and later the chief federal prosecutor, Central Park West is a fast-paced legal thriller with an intriguing plot enriched by real-life details and experiences. That unique perspective gives the novel much of its allure, but it’s the unforgettable characters, shocking twists, and courtroom scenes as authentic as they are dramatic that will leave readers looking forward to more from this bold new talent in the genre.
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Author: Joshua Zeitz
Book: LINCOLN’S GOD: How Faith Transformed a President and a Nation
Publishing: Viking (May 16, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Joshua_Zeitz_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Lincoln’s spiritual journey from spiritual skeptic to America’s first evangelical Christian presidentbeliever—a conversion that changed both the Civil War and the practice of religion itself.Abraham Lincoln, unlike most of his political brethren, kept organized Christianity at arm’s length. He never joined a church and only sometimes attended Sunday services with his wife. But as he came to appreciate the growing political and military importance of the Christian community, and when death touched the Lincoln household in an awful, intimate way, the erstwhile skeptic effectively evolved into a believer and harnessed the power of evangelical Protestantism to rally the nation to arms. The war, he told Americans, was divine retribution for the sin of slavery.
This is the story of that transformation and the ways in which religion helped millions of Northerners interpret the carnage and political upheaval of the 1850s and 1860s. Rather than focus on battles and personalities, Joshua Zeitz probes ways in which war and spiritual convictions became intertwined. Characters include the famous—Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Henry Ward Beecher—as well as ordinary soldiers and their families whose evolving understanding of mortality, heaven, and mission motivated them to fight. Long underestimated in accounts of the Civil War, religion—specifically evangelical Christianity—played an instrumental role on the battlefield and home front, and in the corridors of government.
More than any president before him—or any president after, until George W. Bush—Lincoln harnessed popular religious enthusiasm to build broad-based support for a political party and a cause. A master politician who was sincere about his religion, Lincoln held beliefs that were unconventional—and widely misunderstood then, as now. After his death and the end of an unforgiving war, Americans needed to memorialize Lincoln as a Christian martyr. The truth was, of course, considerably more complicated, as this original book explores.
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Author: Erich Schwartzel
Book: RED CARPET: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy
Publishing: Penguin Press (February 8, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Erich_Schwartzel_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“This is a fascinating book. It will educate you. Schwartzel has done some extraordinary reporting.” — The New York Times Book Review“In this highly entertaining but deeply disturbing book, Erich Schwartzel demonstrates the extent of our cultural thrall to China. His depiction of the craven characters, American and Chinese, who have enabled this situation represents a significant feat of investigative journalism. His narrative is about not merely the movie business, but the new world order.” —Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon
An eye-opening and deeply reported narrative that details the surprising role of the movie business in the high-stakes contest between the U.S. and China
From trade to technology to military might, competition between the United States and China dominates the foreign policy landscape. But this battle for global influence is also playing out in a strange and unexpected arena: the movies.
The film industry, Wall Street Journal reporter Erich Schwartzel explains, is the latest battleground in the tense and complex rivalry between these two world powers. In recent decades, as China has grown into a giant of the international economy, it has become a crucial source of revenue for the American film industry. Hollywood studios are now bending over backward to make movies that will appeal to China’s citizens—and gain approval from severe Communist Party censors. At the same time, and with America’s unwitting help, China has built its own film industry into an essential arm of its plan to export its national agenda to the rest of the world. The competition between these two movie businesses is a Cold War for this century, a clash that determines whether democratic or authoritarian values will be broadcast most powerfully around the world.
Red Carpet is packed with memorable characters who have—knowingly or otherwise—played key roles in this tangled industry web: not only A-list stars like Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, and Richard Gere but also eccentric Chinese billionaires, zany expatriate filmmakers, and starlets who disappear from public life without explanation or trace. Schwartzel combines original reporting, political history, and show-biz intrigue in an exhilarating tour of global entertainment, from propaganda film sets in Beijing to the boardrooms of Hollywood studios to the living rooms in Kenya where families decide whether to watch an American or Chinese movie. Alarming, occasionally absurd, and wildly entertaining, Red Carpet will not only alter the way we watch movies but also offer essential new perspective on the power struggle of this century.
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Author: Jack Kavanagh
Book: ALWAYS IRELAND: An Insider’s Tour of the Emerald Isle
Publishing: National Geographic (February 7, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Jack_Kavanagh_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
This alluring travel guide from National Geographic, covering every county of the Emerald Isle, offers the ultimate insider’s tour of Ireland’s most iconic places, from the literary pubs of Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher. From the emerald green coastal cliffs to centuries-old castles, hole-in-the-wall pubs to world-renowned distilleries, this richly illustrated narrative showcases Ireland’s best sights, bites, and experiences. Written by a renowned expert in all things Eire, this book celebrates the multilayered beauty of the landscape, shines a light on the the country’s innovative traditions, and reveals the robust nightlife across a variety of picturesque cities. More than 300 glorious National Geographic images, along with recommended itineraries, practical tips, and insightful histories, populate these informative and inspiring pages.
Organized by region, Always Ireland will allow you to map your way through the country’s well-known places and hidden treasures alike, featuring must-do experiences, scenic destinations, and expert advice on where to stay, what to eat, and what to do. Each section offers in-the-know secrets and off-the-beaten path recommendations, featuring art galleries, hiking trails, national parks, fishing villages, and more. You’ll also discover favorites from Irish luminaries who know their country best, as well as recipes―from soda bread to Irish stew―to bring the tastes of Ireland into your home kitchen.
Both beautiful and enlightening, this one-of-a-kind guide will allow you to experience Ireland as the locals do!
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Author: Julia Argy
Book: THE ONE: A Novel
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (April 18, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Julia_Argy_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A razor-sharp and seductively hypnotic debut novel about the very fantasy of falling in love.Emily didn’t join the cast of The One for fame or for a relationship. She simply didn’t have anything better to do. Newly fired from her dead-end job, it doesn’t take much convincing when she’s recruited as a last-minute contestant for the popular reality dating show. Emily has been performing her entire life—for her family and friends, former boyfriends, and coworkers. How different could it be playing herself in front of cameras?
But the moment Emily arrives, it becomes clear she’s been tapped to win it all. Emily’s producer Miranda sees her as the golden ticket: generically pretty, affable, and easily molded—all the qualities of a future Wife. Emily herself is less certain. It’s easy enough to fall in love under romantic lighting and perfectly crafted dates, but it’s harder to remember what’s real and what’s designed. And as Emily’s fascination with another contestant grows, both Emily and Miranda are forced to decide what it is they really want—and what they are willing to do to get it.
A brilliant send-up of our cultural mythology around romance, The One examines the reality of love and desire set against a world of ultimate artifice and manipulation.
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Author: Timothy Egan
Book: A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Publishing: A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Timothy_Egan_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“With narrative elan, Egan gives us a riveting saga of how a predatory con man became one of the most powerful people in 1920s America, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, with a plan to rule the country—and how a grisly murder of a woman brought him down. Compelling and chillingly resonant with our own time.” —Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile
“Riveting…Egan is a brilliant researcher and lucid writer.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
A historical thriller by the Pulitzer and National Book Award-winning author that tells the riveting story of the Klan’s rise to power in the 1920s, the cunning con man who drove that rise, and the woman who stopped them.
The Roaring Twenties–the Jazz Age–has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson.
Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he’d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows – their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman – Madge Oberholtzer – who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees.
A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND marries a propulsive drama to a powerful and page-turning reckoning with one of the darkest threads in American history.
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Author: Alex Mar
Book: SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN: A True Story of Murder and Mercy
Publishing: Penguin Press (March 28, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Alex_Mar_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“Alex Mar’s bold yet sensitive account of one of America’s youngest death row inmates—and the people whose lives she forever changed—is intimately reported, deeply moving, and unforgettable.” —Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road“An absorbing work of social history and a story about the mystery and miracle of forgiveness. This is a book of awesome scope, and it deserves to be read with attention.” —Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize–winning author of the Wolf Hall trilogy
A masterful, revelatory work of literary non-fiction about a teenage girl’s shocking crime—and its extraordinary aftermath
On a spring afternoon in 1985 in Gary, Indiana, a fifteen-year-old girl kills an elderly woman in a violent home invasion. In a city with a history of racial tensions and white flight, the girl, Paula Cooper, is Black, and her victim, Ruth Pelke, is white and a beloved Bible teacher. The press swoops in.
When Paula is sentenced to death, no one decries the impending execution of a tenth grader. But the tide begins to shift when the victim’s grandson Bill forgives the girl, against the wishes of his family, and campaigns to spare her life. This tragedy in a midwestern steel town soon reverberates across the United States and around the world—reaching as far away as the Vatican—as newspapers cover the story on their front pages and millions sign petitions in support of Paula.
As Paula waits on death row, her fate sparks a debate that not only animates legal circles but raises vital questions about the value of human life: What are we demanding when we call for justice? Is forgiveness an act of desperation or of profound bravery? As Bill and Paula’s friendship deepens, and as Bill discovers others who have chosen to forgive after terrible violence, their story asks us to consider what radical acts of empathy we might be capable of.
In Seventy Times Seven, Alex Mar weaves an unforgettable narrative of an act of violence and its aftermath. This is a story about the will to live—to survive, to grow, to change—and about what we are willing to accept as justice. Tirelessly researched and told with intimacy and precision, this book brings a haunting chapter in the history of our criminal justice system to astonishing life.
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Author: Rory Carroll
Book: THERE WILL BE FIRE: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Change History
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (April 4, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Rory_Carroll_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A race-against-the-clock narrative that finally illuminates a history-changing event: the IRA’s attempt to assassinate Margaret Thatcher and the epic manhunt that followed.A bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army exploded at 2:54 a.m. on October 12, 1984. It was the last day of the Conservative Party Conference at the Grand Hotel in the coastal town of Brighton, England. Rooms were obliterated, dozens of people wounded, five killed. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in her suite when the explosion occurred; had she been just a few feet in another direction, flying tiles and masonry would have sliced her to ribbons. As it was, she survived—and history changed.
There Will Be Fire is the gripping story of how the IRA came astonishingly close to killing Thatcher, in the most spectacular attack ever linked to the Northern Ireland Troubles. Journalist Rory Carroll reveals the long road to Brighton, the hide-and-seek between the IRA and British security services, the planting of the bomb itself, and the painstaking search for clues and suspects afterward.
In There Will Be Fire, Carroll draws on his own interviews and original reporting, reveals new information, and weaves together previously unconnected threads. There Will Be Fire is journalistic nonfiction that reads like a thriller, propelled by a countdown to detonation.
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Author: Jane Healey
Book: GOOD NIGHT FROM PARIS: A Novel
Publishing: Lake Union Publishing (March 7, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jane_Healey_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
In Nazi-occupied France, an American film star takes on the most dangerous role of her life in a gripping novel about loyalty and resistance, inspired by a true story, from the Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Secret Stealers.
Paris, 1939. Hollywood actress Drue Leyton, married to Frenchman Jacques Tartière, lives as an expatriate in love. But when her husband is dispatched to Brittany to work as a liaison for the British military, Drue finds herself alone with her housekeeper, adrift and heartsick in her adopted city. With her career and fame forty-five hundred miles away, Drue accepts an opportunity that will change her life forever.
Befriended by seasoned wartime journalist Dorothy Thompson and urged on by political operative Jean Fraysse, Drue broadcasts radio programs to the United States. Her duty: shake America from its apathy and, as Nazis encroach and France is occupied, push for resistance and help from the US. As Drue and Jean fall under suspicion, Hitler sends his own message: when Drue’s adopted country is conquered, she will be executed.
In a Paris that is no longer safe, Drue’s political passion is ignited. She’s prepared to risk anything to fight the enemy no matter how dangerous it gets―for her, for everyone she loves, and for everything she’s fighting for.
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Author: Myra Alley Kingsbury
Book: MAWZY’S HOPE CHEST
Publishing: Book-Broker (2021)
Writer from Ponca, Nebraska
Order the book here
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Myra_Alley_Kingsbury_to_air.mp3Synopsis:
Grace Louise Walker, affectionately known as Mawzy, was born near the turn of the 20th century in the hills of West Virginia’s coal-mining country.Her granddaughter, Myra, writes of how Mawzy grew to be the matriarch and inspiration for her siblings, her children, her grandchildren, hundreds of schoolchildren, and her church family. From the coal camp of Gentry Holler, through a divorce and being a single mother in an unaccepting era, to becoming the principal of Springdale Elementary, Mawzy faced tragedy many times. How she picked up and moved on each time reveals the strength of her moral fiber. When one door closed, she found another to openand stepped into it with grace and purpose. Driven to achieve, she was ahead of her time.Mawzy’s Hope Chest sets the life of an incredible woman against the backdrop of a beautiful yet unforgiving land. Well-researched and documented, the book is a memoir of transformation and a helpful guide in researching the history of West Virginia.
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Author: Cheryl A. Head
Book: TIME’S UNDOING: A Novel
Publishing: Dutton (February 28, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Cheryl_A_Head_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A searing and tender novel about a young Black journalist’s search for answers in the unsolved murder of her great-grandfather in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, decades ago—inspired by the author’s own family historyBirmingham, 1929: Robert Lee Harrington, a master carpenter, has just moved to Alabama to pursue a job opportunity, bringing along his pregnant wife and young daughter. Birmingham is in its heyday, known as the “Magic City” for its booming steel industry, and while Robert and his family find much to enjoy in the city’s busy markets and vibrant nightlife, it’s also a stronghold for the Klan. And with his beautiful, light-skinned wife and snazzy car, Robert begins to worry that he might be drawing the wrong kind of attention.
2019: Meghan McKenzie, the youngest reporter at the Detroit Free Press, has grown up hearing family lore about her great-grandfather’s murder—but no one knows the full story of what really happened back then, and his body was never found. Determined to find answers to her family’s long-buried tragedy and spurred by the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, Meghan travels to Birmingham. But as her investigation begins to uncover dark secrets that spider across both the city and time, her life may be in danger.
Inspired by true events, Time’s Undoing is both a passionate tale of one woman’s quest for the truth behind the racially motivated trauma that has haunted her family for generations and, as newfound friends and supporters in Birmingham rally around Meghan’s search, the uplifting story of a community coming together to fight for change.
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Author: Lynn Cullen
Book: THE WOMAN WITH THE CURE
Publishing: Berkley (February 21, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Lynn_Cullen_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“Huge applause… women have always been in science—despite those who would pretend otherwise.” –Bonnie Garmus, New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
She gave up everything — and changed the world.A riveting novel based on the true story of the woman who stopped a pandemic, from the bestselling author of Mrs. Poe.
In 1940s and ’50s America, polio is as dreaded as the atomic bomb. No one’s life is untouched by this disease that kills or paralyzes its victims, particularly children. Outbreaks of the virus across the country regularly put American cities in lockdown. Some of the world’s best minds are engaged in the race to find a vaccine. The man who succeeds will be a god.
But Dorothy Horstmann is not focused on beating her colleagues to the vaccine. She just wants the world to have a cure. Applying the same determination that lifted her from a humble background as the daughter of immigrants, to becoming a doctor –often the only woman in the room–she hunts down the monster where it lurks: in the blood.
This discovery of hers, and an error by a competitor, catapults her closest colleague to a lead in the race. When his chance to win comes on a worldwide scale, she is asked to sink or validate his vaccine—and to decide what is forgivable, and how much should be sacrificed, in pursuit of the cure.
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Editor: Jennifer Eastwood, Senior Editor of Disney Editions
Book: THE STORY OF DISNEY: 100 Years of Wonder
Publishing: Disney Editions (March 7, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Jennifer_Eastwood_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The Walt Disney Company honors its 100th anniversary in 2023. As part of the festivities, this must-have coffee table book showcases the company’s history and rich legacy―past, present, and future―through vibrant voices and rare Disney concept art and photographs.On October 16, 1923, Walt Disney and his brother Roy founded what we now know to be The Walt Disney Company. Walt’s passion and vision continues to inspire creative development across the company. As a result, Disney characters―and their stories―have touched the lives of generations of fans. They encourage a belief that dreams really can come true.
As the official companion to the touring exhibition by Walt Disney Archives and SC Exhibitions, this gorgeous coffee table book serves as a treasure trove for pop culture enthusiasts, artists, art collectors, and Disney fans.
Searching for more ways to connect with the Disney Parks and films? Explore these books from Disney Editions:
- Delicious Disney: Walt Disney World: Recipes & Stories from The Most Magical Place on Earth
- A Portrait of Walt Disney World: 50 Years of The Most Magical Place on Earth
- Birnbaum’s 2023 Walt Disney World: The Official Vacation Guide
- Birnbaum’s 2023 Walt Disney World for Kids: The Official Guide
- Art of Coloring: Walt Disney World
- Maps of the Disney Parks: Charting 60 Years from California to Shanghai
- Poster Art of the Disney Parks
- Holiday Magic at the Disney Parks: Celebrations Around the World from Fall to Winter
- The Haunted Mansion: Imagineering a Disney Classic
- The Disney Monorail: Imagineering a Highway in the Sky The post JENNIFER EASTWOOD – THE STORY OF DISNEY: 100 Years of Wonder appeared first on KSCJ 1360.
Author: Joanna Schwartz
Book: SHIELDED: How the Police Became Untouchable
Publishing: Viking (February 14, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Joanna_Schwartz_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
An urgent and definitive examination of how the legal system prevents accountability for police misconduct, from one of the country’s leading scholars on policingIn recent years, the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others have brought much-needed attention to the pervasiveness of police misconduct. Yet it remains nearly impossible to hold police accountable for abuses of power—the decisions of the Supreme Court, state and local governments, and policy makers have, over decades, made the police all but untouchable.
In Shielded, University of California, Los Angeles, law professor Joanna Schwartz exposes the myriad ways in which our legal system protects police at all costs, with insightful analyses about subjects ranging from qualified immunity to no-knock warrants. The product of more than two decades of advocacy and research, Shielded is a timely and necessary investigation into why civil rights litigation so rarely leads to justice or prevents future police misconduct. Weaving powerful true stories of people seeking restitution for violated rights, cutting across race, gender, criminal history, tax bracket, and zip code, Schwartz paints a compelling picture of the human cost of our failing criminal justice system, bringing clarity to a problem that is widely known but little understood. Shielded is a masterful work of immediate and enduring consequence, revealing what tragically familiar calls for “justice” truly entail.
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Author: C.J. Box
Book: STORM WATCH (A Joe Pickett Novel)
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (February 28, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/CJ_Box_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett investigates a mysterious death at a secret remote high-tech facility in this riveting new novel from #1 New York Times bestseller C.J. Box.
When a prominent University of Wyoming professor goes missing, authorities are stumped. That is, until Joe Pickett makes two surprising discoveries while hunting down a wounded elk on his district as an epic spring storm descends upon him. First, he finds the professor’s vehicle parked on a remote mountainside. Then Joe finds the professor’s frozen and mutilated body. When he attempts to learn more, his investigation is obstructed by federal agents, extremists, and Governor Colter Allen.
Nate Romanowski is rebuilding his falconry company—and financing this through crypto mining with the assistance of Geronimo Jones. He’s then approached by a shadowy group of local militant activists that is gaining in power and influence, and demanding that Wyoming join other western states and secede from the union—by force, if necessary. They ask Nate to throw in with them, but he’s wary. Should he trust them, or is he being set up?
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Author: Nick Brooks
Book: PROMISE BOYS
Publishing: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) (January 31, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Nick_Brooks_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A blockbuster, dark academia mystery about three teens of color who must investigate their principal’s murder to clear their own names―this page-turning thriller is perfect for fans of Karen McManus, Jason Reynolds, Angie Thomas, and Holly Jackson.
“Thrilling, captivating, and blade-sharp.” ―Karen M. McManus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying
“A brilliant pulls-no-punches mystery.” ―Adam Silvera, #1 New York Times bestselling author of They Both Die at the End
The prestigious Urban Promise Prep school might look pristine on the outside, but deadly secrets lurk within. When the principal ends up murdered on school premises and the cops come sniffing around, a trio of students―J.B., Ramón, and Trey―emerge as the prime suspects. They had the means, they had the motive―and they may have had the murder weapon. But with all three maintaining their innocence, they must band together to track down the real killer before they are arrested. Or is the true culprit hiding among them?
Find out who killed Principal Moore in Nick Brooks’s murder mystery, Promise Boys―The Hate U Give meets One of Us Is Lying.
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Author: Lou Raguse
Book: VANISHED IN VERMILLION: The Real Story of South Dakota’s Most Infamous Cold Case
Publishing: Post Hill Press (February 21, 2023)
ORDER THE BOOK HERE!
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Lou_Raguse_to_air.mp3Synopsis (From the Publisher):
The result of hundreds of interviews, Vanished in Vermillion is a cold case story that flips the script on a typical investigation narrative, revealing the biggest law enforcement embarrassment in South Dakota history.
In May 1971, Pam Jackson and Sherri Miller were two seventeen-year-olds driving to an end-of-the-school-year party in a rundown Studebaker Lark when they seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. Police back then didn’t do enough to try and find them. Investigators thirty years later did too much. Two families endure decades of pain as they await answers of what happened to their girls. When a third family is pulled into the mystery, they quickly learn their nightmare is just beginning.
“Lou’s terrific storytelling and investigative skills give the reader a front-row seat as he unravels this bizarre case, chock-full of twists and turns.”
—Caroline Lowe, veteran crime journalist and member of the FindJodi team
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Author: Vincent Todd Tolman
Book: THE LIGHT AFTER DEATH: My Journey to Heaven and Back
Publishing: Ascendt Publishing (August 1, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Vincent_Todd_Tolman_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“This book was literally life changing for me. It not only explained why the world is the way it is right now; it gave me hope in what’s to come.” – Richard Paul Evans #1 New York Times bestselling author
Have you ever asked yourself, “What happens after we die?” Vincent was taken by Death. He was dead for a full 30 minutes. Did he see a bright light? What does heaven look like? What Does one feel when their heart stops beating? Are you embraced by the light?
True account of life after death and touching heaven that is guaranteed to change your perspective on the meaning and purpose of life.
In The Light After Death, the writer’s account of his ordeal, told from the perspective of somebody who was dead but came back to life. From someone who experienced afterlife firsthand, learned about what lies beyond the threshold for those who are willing to open their mind.
Vincent Tolman was found dead in the bathroom of a small restaurant. He had been dead for over half an hour at the age of 25. When paramedics arrived, they put him in a body bag and took him away. A rookie paramedic had a feeling to risk his career, break all protocols, and try to resuscitate him. Miraculously, he restarted Vincent’s heart, but Vincent was in a coma for three days. He remembers what happened on the “other side” while he was dead.
A True Story Like None Other
Vincent remembers what he saw when he was dead for 30 minutes and talks about the 10 principles he learned from his afterlife. This book is not just a story of hope, but it also provides advice on how we can live our lives based on what this person learned during his experience.
The Light After Death Vincent Todd Tolman, an experience that will change your life.
“I died for 30 minutes, and I came back with a story.”
The post VINCENT TODD TOLMAN – THE LIGHT AFTER DEATH: My Journey to Heaven and Back appeared first on KSCJ 1360.
Author: Leah Konen
Book: YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME: A Novel
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (January 3, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Leah_Konen_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
A new mother chases the secrets her partner left behind after his sudden disappearance in this pulse-pounding domestic thriller from the author of The Perfect Escape.Janie needs a break: her baby won’t sleep, she’s struggling with motherhood, and a secret from her past threatens to tear her new family apart. So when her partner, Max, offers to do their baby’s feedings that night so she can finally get some sleep, she jumps at the chance. But when Janie wakes up at three a.m., her daughter is screaming alone in her bassinet … Max has vanished.
Alone with a newborn and desperate for answers, Janie searches for Max, but the more she learns about the man she loves, the more she wonders how well she knew him at all. When a woman is murdered and Max becomes the prime suspect, Janie must face her partner’s secrets—and her own—if she ever wants her daughter to see her father again.
An endlessly suspenseful and surprising look at both the beauty and darkness of modern motherhood, You Should Have Told Me is a roller-coaster of a thriller with family at its heart.
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Author: Grady Hendrix
Book: THE FINAL GIRL SUPPORT GROUP: A Novel
Publishing: Berkley (July 13, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Grady_Hendrix_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERVOTED GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD BEST HORROR NOVEL OF 2021
A Good Morning America Buzz Pick
“The horror master…puts his unique spin on slasher movie tropes.”-USA Today
A can’t-miss summer read, selected by The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Time, USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer,CNN, LitHub, BookRiot,Bustle, Popsugar and the New York Public Library
In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?
Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix’s latest is a fast-paced, frightening, and wickedly humorous thriller. From chain saws to summer camp slayers, The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films—movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.
But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.
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Author: Dan Hampton
Book: VALOR: The Astonishing World War II Saga of One Man’s Defiance and Indomitable Spirit
Publishing: St. Martin’s Press (May 3, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Dan_Hampton_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Valor is the magnificent story of a genuine American hero who survived the fall of the Philippines and brutal captivity under the Japanese, from New York Times bestselling author Dan Hampton.
Lieutenant William Frederick “Bill” Harris was 25 years old when captured by Japanese forces during the Battle of Corregidor in May 1942. This son of a decorated Marine general escaped from hell on earth by swimming eight hours through a shark-infested bay; but his harrowing ordeal had just begun.
Shipwrecked on the southern coast of the Philippines, he was sheltered by a Filipino aristocrat, engaged in guerilla fighting, and eventually set off through hostile waters to China. After 29 days of misadventures and violent storms, Harris and his crew limped into a friendly fishing village in the southern Philippines. Evading and fighting for months, he embarked on another agonizing voyage to Australia, but was betrayed by treacherous islanders and handed over to the Japanese. Held for two years in the notorious Ofuna prisoner-of-war camp outside Yokohama, Harris was continuously starved, tortured, and beaten, but he never surrendered. Teaching himself Japanese, he eavesdropped on the guards and created secret codes to communicate with fellow prisoners. After liberation on August 30, 1945, Bill represented American Marine POWs during the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay before joining his father and flying to a home he had not seen in four years.
Valor is a riveting new look at the Pacific War. Through military documents, personal photos, and an unpublished memoir provided by his daughter, Harris’ experiences are dramatically revealed through his own words in the expert hands of bestselling author and retired fighter pilot Dan Hampton. This is the stunning and captivating true story of an American hero.
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Author: Brad Meltzer (with Josh Mensch)
Book: THE NAZI CONSPIRACY: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
Publishing: Flatiron Books (January 10, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Brad_Meltzer_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From the New York Times bestselling authors of The First Conspiracy and The Lincoln Conspiracy comes the little-known true story of a Nazi plot to kill FDR, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill at the height of World War II.
In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape―an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.
A true story filled with daring rescues, body doubles, and political intrigue, The Nazi Conspiracy details FDR’s pivotal meeting in Tehran and the deadly Nazi plot against the heads of state of the three major Allied powers who attended it.
With all the hallmarks of a Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch page-turner, The Nazi Conspiracy explores the great political minds of the twentieth century, investigating the pivotal years of the war in gripping detail. This meeting of the Big Three changed the course of World War II. Here’s the inside story of how it almost led to a world-shattering disaster.
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Author: David M. Rubenstein
Book: HOW TO INVEST: Masters on the Craft
Publishing: Simon & Schuster (September 13, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/David_Rubenstein_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA master class on investing featuring conversations with the biggest names in finance, from the legendary cofounder of The Carlyle Group, David M. Rubenstein.
What do the most successful investors have in common? David M. Rubenstein, cofounder of one of the world’s largest investment firms, has spent years interviewing the greatest investors in the world to discover the time-tested principles, hard-earned wisdom, and indispensable tools that guide their practice.
Rubenstein, who has spent more than three decades in the hypercompetitive world of private equity, now distills everything he’s learned about the art and craft of investing, from venture capital, real estate, private equity, hedge funds, to crypto, endowments, SPACs, ESG, and more.
-How did Stan Druckenmiller short the British pound in one trade for a profit of $1 billion dollars?
-What made Sam Zell the smartest, toughest investor the world of real estate has ever seen?
-How did Mike Novogratz make $250 million off crypto in one year?
-How did Larry Fink build BlackRock from scratch into a firm that manages more than $10 trillion?
-How did Mary Callahan Erdoes rise to the top of J.P. Morgan’s wealth management division to manage more than $4 trillion for individuals and families all over the world?
-How did Seth Klarman perfect value investing to consistently deliver net returns of nearly 20 percent?
With unprecedented access to global leaders in finance, Rubenstein has assembled the most authoritative book of its kind. How to Invest reveals the thinking of the most successful investors in the world, many of whom rarely speak publicly. Whether you’re brand-new to investing or a seasoned professional, this book will transform the way you approach investing forever.
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Author: Matt Haig
Book: THE COMFORT BOOK
Publishing: Penguin Life (July 6, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Matt_Haig_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
An instant New York Times Bestseller!The new uplifting book from Matt Haig, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library, for anyone in search of hope, looking for a path to a more meaningful life, or in need of a little encouragement.
Named by The Washington Post as one of the best feel-good books of 2021.
“It is a strange paradox, that many of the clearest, most comforting life lessons are learnt while we are at our lowest. But then we never think about food more than when we are hungry and we never think about life rafts more than when we are thrown overboard.”
THE COMFORT BOOK is Haig’s life raft: it’s a collection of notes, lists, and stories written over a span of several years that originally served as gentle reminders to Haig’s future self that things are not always as dark as they may seem. Incorporating a diverse array of sources from across the world, history, science, and his own experiences, Haig offers warmth and reassurance, reminding us to slow down and appreciate the beauty and unpredictability of existence.
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Author: Deborah Goodrich Royce
Book: REEF ROAD: A Novel
Publishing: Post Hill Press (January 10, 2023)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Deborah_Goodrich_Royce_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
When a severed hand washes ashore in the wealthy enclave of Palm Beach, Florida, the lives of two women—a lonely writer obsessed with the unsolved murder of her mother’s best friend and a panicked wife whose husband has disappeared with their children—collide as the world shutters in the pandemic lockdown of 2020.“Reef Road is magnificent. It feels utterly real, a novel of deeply personal context. It swerves between truth and lies—the lies that lead to an even deeper—and more devastating—truth. Though pure fiction, it reads as compellingly as a mixture of memoir and exposé. It has left me shaken to the core. Deborah Goodrich Royce writes with brilliant understanding of the mystery and occasional grace of trauma.” —Luanne Rice, New York Times bestselling author
A young woman’s life seems perfect until her family goes missing. A writer lives alone with her dog and collects arcane murder statistics. What each of them stands to lose as they sneak around the do-not-enter tape blocking Reef Road beach is exposed by the steady tightening of the cincture encircling them.
In a nod to the true crime that inspired it, Deborah Goodrich Royce’s Reef Road probes unhealed generational scars in a wrenching and original work of fiction. It is both stunning and sexy and, like a bystander surprised by a curtain left open, you won’t be able to look away.
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Author: Andrew Seidel
Book: AMERICAN CRUSADE: How the Supreme Court is Weaponizing Religious Freedom
Publishing: Union Square & Co. (September 27, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Andrew_Seidel_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Is a fight against equality and for privilege a fight for religious supremacy? Andrew L. Seidel, a constitutional attorney and author of the critically acclaimed book The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American, dives into the debate on religious liberty, the modern attempt to weaponize religious freedom, and the Supreme Court’s role in that “crusade.”
Seidel examines some of the key Supreme Court cases of the last thirty years—including Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (a bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple), Trump v. Hawaii (the anti-Muslim travel ban case), American Legion v. American Humanist Association (related to a group maintaining a 40-foot Christian cross on government-owned land), and Tandon v. Newsom (a Santa Clara Bible group exempted from Covid health restrictions), as well as the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade—and how a hallowed legal protection, freedom of religion, has been turned into a tool to advance privilege and impose religion on others. This is a meticulously researched and deeply insightful account of our political landscape with a foreword provided by noted constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky, author of The Case Against the Supreme Court.
The issue of church versus state is more relevant than ever in today’s political climate and with the conservative majority status of the current Supreme Court. This book is a standout on the shelf for fans of Michelle Alexander, Bob Woodward, and Christopher Hitchens. Readers looking for critiques of the rise of Christian nationalism, like Jesus and John Wayne, and examinations like How Democracies Die will devour Seidel’s analysis.
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Author: Joel Richard Paul
Book: INDIVISIBLE: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism
Publishing: Riverhead Books (October 25, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Joel_Richard_Paul_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The story of how Daniel Webster popularized the ideals of American nationalism that helped forge our nation’s identity and inspire Abraham Lincoln to preserve the UnionWhen the United States was founded in 1776, its citizens didn’t think of themselves as “Americans.” They were New Yorkers or Virginians or Pennsylvanians. It was decades later that the seeds of American nationalism—identifying with one’s own nation and supporting its broader interests—began to take root. But what kind of nationalism should Americans embrace? The state-focused and racist nationalism of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson? Or the belief that the U.S. Constitution made all Americans one nation, indivisible, which Daniel Webster and others espoused?
In Indivisible, historian and law professor Joel Richard Paul tells the fascinating story of how Webster, a young New Hampshire attorney turned politician, rose to national prominence through his powerful oratory and unwavering belief in the United States and captured the national imagination. In his speeches, on the floors of the House and Senate, in court, and as Secretary of State, Webster argued that the Constitution was not a compact made by states but an expression of the will of all Americans. As the greatest orator of his age, Webster saw his speeches and writings published widely, and his stirring rhetoric convinced Americans to see themselves differently, as a nation bound together by a government of laws, not parochial interests. As these ideas took root, they influenced future leaders, among them Abraham Lincoln, who drew on them to hold the nation together during the Civil War.
As he did in Without Precedent and Unlikely Allies, Joel Richard Paul has written in Indivisible both a compelling history and a fascinating account of one of the founders of our national perspective.
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Author: Richard Paul Evans
Book: A CHRISTMAS MEMORY
Publication: Gallery Books (November 22, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Richard_Paul_Evans_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Christmas Box and the Noel Collection comes A Christmas Memory, a poignant, deeply felt novel about loss, grief, the healing power of forgiveness, and the true meaning of the holiday season.
It’s 1967, and for young Richard it’s a time of heartbreak and turmoil. Over the span of a few months, his brother, Mark, is killed in Vietnam; his father loses his job and moves the family from California to his grandmother’s abandoned home in Utah; and his parents make the painful decision to separate.
With uncertainty rattling every corner of his life, Richard does his best to remain strong—but when he’s run down by bullies at his new school, he meets Mr. Foster, an elderly neighbor who chases off the bullies and invites Richard in for a cup of cocoa. Richard becomes fast friends with the wise, solitary man who inspires Richard’s love for books and whose dog, Gollum, becomes his closest companion.
As the holidays approach, the joy and light of Christmas seem unlikely to permeate the Evans home as things take a grim turn for the worse. And just when it seems like he has nothing left to lose, Richard is confronted by a startling revelation. But with Mr. Foster’s wisdom and kindness, he learns for the first time what truly matters about the spirit of the season: that forgiveness can heal even the deepest wounds, and love endures long after the pain of loss subsides.
In A Christmas Memory, Richard Paul Evans (#1 New York Times bestselling author and the “King of Christmas fiction”) delves deep into his childhood memories to take readers back to an age when his world felt like it was falling apart, reminding us that even in the darkest of times, the light of hope can still shine.
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Author: Jane Smiley
Book: A DANGEROUS BUSINESS: A Novel
Publishing: Knopf (December 6, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Jane_Smiley_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of A Thousand Acres: An amazing “mash-up of a Western, a serial-killer mystery and a feminist-inflected tale of life in a bordello” (The Washington Post).
In 1850s Gold Rush California two young prostitutes, best friends Eliza and Jean, attempt to find their way in a lawless town on the fringes of the Wild West—a bewitching combination of beauty and danger—as what will become the Civil War looms on the horizon.
“Everyone knows that this is a dangerous business, but between you and me, being a woman is a dangerous business, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise…”Monterey, 1851. Ever since her husband was killed in a bar fight, Eliza Ripple has been working in a brothel. It seems like a better life, at least at first. The madam, Mrs. Parks, is kind, the men are (relatively) well behaved, and Eliza has attained what few women have: financial security. But when the dead bodies of young women start appearing outside of town, a darkness descends that she can’t resist confronting. Side by side with her friend Jean, and inspired by her reading, especially by Edgar Allan Poe’s detective Dupin, Eliza pieces together an array of clues to try to catch the killer, all the while juggling clients who begin to seem more and more suspicious.
Eliza and Jean are determined not just to survive, but to find their way in a lawless town on the fringes of the Wild West—a bewitching combination of beauty and danger—as what will become the Civil War looms on the horizon. As Mrs. Parks says, “Everyone knows that this is a dangerous business, but between you and me, being a woman is a dangerous business, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise …”
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Co-Author: Felix Gillette (with John Koblin)
Book: IT’S NOT TV: The Spectacular Ruse, Revolution, and Future of HBO
Publishing: Viking (November 1, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Felix_Gillette_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“A read so riveting, it’s not hard to imagine watching it unfold on Sunday nights.” —The Associated Press“An incisive account that is more than a rosy victory lap for one of TV’s most influential channels.” —Eric Deggans, NPR’s “Books We Love”
The inside story of HBO, the start-up company that reinvented television—by two veteran media reporters
HBO changed how stories could be told on TV. The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The Wire, Game of Thrones. The network’s meteoric rise heralded the second golden age of television with serialized shows that examined and reflected American anxieties, fears, and secret passions through complicated characters who were flawed and often unlikable. HBO’s own behind-the-scenes story is as complex, compelling, and innovative as the dramas the network created, driven by unorthodox executives who pushed the boundaries of what viewers understood as television at the turn of the century. Originally conceived by a small upstart group of entrepreneurs to bring Hollywood movies into living rooms across America, the scrappy network grew into one of the most influential and respected players in Hollywood. It’s Not TV is the deeply reported, definitive story of one of America’s most daring and popular cultural institutions, laying bare HBO’s growth, dominance, and vulnerability within the capricious media landscape over the past fifty years.
Through the visionary executives, showrunners, and producers who shaped HBO, seasoned journalists Gillette and Koblin bring to life a dynamic cast of characters who drove the company’s creative innovation in astonishing ways—outmaneuvering copycat competitors, taming Hollywood studios, transforming 1980s comedians and athletes like Chris Rock and Mike Tyson into superstars, and in the late 1990s and 2000s elevating the commercial-free, serialized drama to a revered art form. But in the midst of all its success, HBO was also defined by misbehaving executives, internal power struggles, and a few crucial miscalculations.
As data-driven models like Netflix have taken over streaming, HBO’s artful, instinctual, and humanistic approach to storytelling is in jeopardy. Taking readers into the boardrooms and behind the camera, It’s Not TV tells the surprising, fascinating story of HBO’s ascent, its groundbreaking influence on American business, technology, and popular culture, and its increasingly precarious position in the very market it created.
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Author: Jenna Evans Welch
Book: SPELLS FOR LOST THINGS
Publishing: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (September 27, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Jenna_Evans_Welch_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From the New York Times bestselling author of Love & Gelato comes a poignant and romantic novel about two teens trying to find their place in the world after being unceremoniously dragged to Salem, Massachusetts, for the summer.Willow has never felt like she belonged anywhere and is convinced that the only way to find a true home is to travel the world. But her plans to act on her dream are put on hold when her aloof and often absent mother drags Willow to Salem, Massachusetts, to wrap up the affairs of an aunt Willow didn’t even know she had. An aunt who may or may not have been a witch.
There, she meets Mason, a loner who’s always felt out of place and has been in and out of foster homes his entire life. He’s been classified as one of the runaways, constantly searching for ways to make it back to his mom; even if she can’t take care of him, it’s his job to try and take care of her. Isn’t it?
Naturally pulled to one another, Willow and Mason set out across Salem to discover the secret past of Willow’s mother, her aunt, and the ambiguous history of her family. During all of this, the two can’t help but act on their natural connection. But with the amount of baggage between them—and Willow’s growing conviction her family might be cursed—can they manage to hold onto each other?
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Author: Kate Winkler Dawson
Book: ALL THAT IS WICKED: A Gilded-Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (October 4, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Kate_Winkler_Dawson_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Acclaimed crime historian, podcaster, and author of American Sherlock Kate Winkler Dawson tells the thrilling story of Edward Rulloff—a serial murderer who was called “too intelligent to be killed”—and the array of 19th century investigators who were convinced his brain held the key to finally understanding the criminal mind.Edward Rulloff was a brilliant yet utterly amoral murderer—some have called him a “Victorian-era Hannibal Lecter”—whose crimes spanned decades and whose victims were chosen out of revenge, out of envy, and sometimes out of necessity. From his humble beginnings in upstate New York to the dazzling salons and social life he established in New York City, at every turn Rulloff used his intelligence and regal bearing to evade detection and avoid punishment. He could talk his way out of any crime…until one day, Rulloff’s luck ran out.
By 1871 Rulloff sat chained in his cell—a psychopath holding court while curious 19th-century “mindhunters” tried to understand what made him tick. From alienists (early psychiatrists who tried to analyze the source of his madness) to neurologists (who wanted to dissect his brain) to phrenologists (who analyzed the bumps on his head to determine his character), each one thought he held the key to understanding the essential question: is evil born or made? Eventually, Rulloff’s brain would be placed in a jar at Cornell University as the prize specimen of their anatomy collection…where it still sits today, slowly moldering in a dusty jar. But his story—and its implications for the emerging field of criminal psychology—were just beginning.
Expanded from season one of her hit podcast on the Exactly Right network (7 million downloads and growing), in All That Is Wicked Kate Winkler Dawson draws on hundreds of source materials and never-before-shared historical documents to present one of the first glimpses into the mind of a serial killer—a century before the term was coined—through the scientists whose work would come to influence criminal justice for decades to come.
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Author: Yeva Skalietska
Book: YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT WAR IS: The Diary of a Young Girl from Ukraine
Publishing: Union Square & Co. (October 25, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Yeva_Skalietska_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
An inspiring memoir of resilience by a young survivor of the war in Ukraine, as told through her diary entries—a harrowing and ultimately hopeful survival story.
Yeva Skalietska’s story begins on her twelfth birthday in Kharkiv, where she has been living with her grandmother since she was a baby. Ten days later, the only life she’d ever known was shattered. On February 24, 2022, her city was suddenly under attack as Russia launched its horrifying invasion of Ukraine. Yeva and her grandmother took shelter in a basement bunker, where she began writing this diary. She describes the bombings she endured while sheltering underground and her desperate journey west to escape the conflict raging around them. After many endless train rides and a prolonged stay in an overcrowded refugee center in Western Ukraine, Yeva and her beloved grandmother eventually find refuge in Ireland. There, she bravely begins to forge a new life, hoping she’ll be able to return home one day.
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Author: Beverly Gage
Book: G-MAN: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century
Publishing: Viking (November 22, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Beverly_Gage_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
“[A] crisply written, prodigiously researched, and frequently astonishing new biography”—The New Yorker“Masterful…This book is an enduring, formidable accomplishment, a monument to the power of biography [that] now becomes the definitive work”—The Washington Post
“Revelatory…an acknowledgment of the complexities that made Hoover who he was, while charging the turbulent currents that eventually swept him aside.” —The New York Times
NEW YORK TIMES TOP 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022
The Washington Post “Top Ten Books of 2022”
Publishers Weekly * “Top Ten Books of 2022”
Smithsonian Magazine “The Ten Best History Books of 2022”
A major new biography of J Edgar Hoover that draws from never-before-seen sources to create a groundbreaking portrait of a colossus who dominated half a century of American history and planted the seeds for much of today’s conservative political landscape.
We remember him as a bulldog–squat frame, bulging wide-set eyes, fearsome jowls–but in 1924, when he became director of the FBI, he had been the trim, dazzling wunderkind of the administrative state, buzzing with energy and big ideas for reform. He transformed a failing law-enforcement backwater, riddled with scandal, into a modern machine. He believed in the power of the federal government to do great things for the nation and its citizens. He also believed that certain people–many of them communists or racial minorities or both– did not deserve to be included in that American project. Hoover rose to power and then stayed there, decade after decade, using the tools of state to create a personal fiefdom unrivaled in U.S. history.
Beverly Gage’s monumental work explores the full sweep of Hoover’s life and career, from his birth in 1895 to a modest Washington civil-service family through his death in 1972. In her nuanced and definitive portrait, Gage shows how Hoover was more than a one-dimensional tyrant and schemer who strong-armed the rest of the country into submission. As FBI director from 1924 through his death in 1972, he was a confidant, counselor, and adversary to eight U.S. presidents, four Republicans and four Democrats. Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson did the most to empower him, yet his closest friend among the eight was fellow anticommunist warrior Richard Nixon. Hoover was not above blackmail and intimidation, but he also embodied conservative values ranging from anticommunism to white supremacy to a crusading and politicized interpretation of Christianity. This garnered him the admiration of millions of Americans. He stayed in office for so long because many people, from the highest reaches of government down to the grassroots, wanted him there and supported what he was doing, thus creating the template that the political right has followed to transform its party.
G-Man places Hoover back where he once stood in American political history–not at the fringes, but at the center–and uses his story to explain the trajectories of governance, policing, race, ideology, political culture, and federal power as they evolved over the course of the 20th century.
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Cartoonist: Harry Bliss (with author Steve Martin)
Book: NUMBER ONE IS WALKING: MY Life in the Movies and other Diversions
Publishing: Celadon Books (November 15, 2022)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Harry_Bliss_to_air.mp3Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Number One Is Walking is Steve Martin’s cinematic legacy―an illustrated memoir of his legendary acting career, with stories from his most popular films and artwork by New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss.
Steve Martin has never written about his career in the movies before. In Number One Is Walking, he shares anecdotes from the sets of his beloved films―Father of the Bride, Roxanne, The Jerk, Three Amigos, and many more―bringing readers directly into his world. He shares charming tales of antics, moments of inspiration, and exploits with the likes of Paul McCartney, Diane Keaton, Robin Williams, and Chevy Chase. Martin details his forty years in the movie biz, as well as his stand-up comedy, banjo playing, writing, and cartooning, all with his unparalleled wit.
With gorgeously illustrated cartoons and single-panel “diversions” in Steve and Harry’s signature style, Number One Is Walking is full of the everyday moments that make up a movie star’s life, capturing Steve Martin’s singular humor and acclaimed career in film. The perfect gift from the team who brought you the #1 New York Times bestseller A Wealth of Pigeons.
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Author: Jeffery Deaver Book: HUNTING TIME: A Colter Shaw Novel Publication: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (November 22, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): The New York Times bestselling master of suspense is back with a riveting thriller, as reward seeker Colter Shaw plunges into the woods and races the clock in a case where nothing is quite […]
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Author: John A. Farrell Book: TED KENNEDY: A Life Publishing: Penguin Press (October 25, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION An enthralling and ground-breaking new biography of one of modern America’s most fascinating and consequential political figures, drawing on important new sources, by an award-winning biographer who […]
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Editor: Ann R. Williams Book: TREASURES OF EGYPT: A Legacy in Photographs from the Pyramids to Cleopatra Publishing: National Geographic (October 18, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Drawing from National Geographic’s unparalleled photo archive, the images in this breathtaking volume celebrate the vibrant beauty and rich cultural heritage of Egypt on the 100th anniversary of […]
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Author: Scott Turow Book: SUSPECT: A Thriller Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (September 27, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent and The Last Trial returns with a riveting legal thriller in which a reckless private detective is embroiled in a fraught police scandal. For as long as […]
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Author: Robert Crais Book: RACING THE LIGHT: An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (November 1, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): On Reader’s Digest‘s list of “30 new books we can’t wait to read in 2022″ Private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike are back on the case […]
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Author: April White Book: THE DIVORCE COLONY: How Women Revolutionized Marriage and Found Freedom on the American Frontier Publishing: Hachette Books (June 14, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): AN AMAZON “BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH (Nonfiction)” (June 2022) AN APPLE “BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH ” (June 2022) From a historian and senior editor at Atlas […]
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Author: David Baldacci Book: LONG SHADOWS: A Memory Man Thriller Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (October 11, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): From the author of The 6:20 Man, “Memory Man” Amos Decker—an FBI consultant with perfect recall—delves into a bewildering double homicide in this new thriller in David Baldacci’s #1 New York Times bestselling series. When Amos Decker is […]
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Author: C.J. Box Book: TREASURE STATE: A Cassie Dewell Novel Publishing: Minotaur Books (September 27, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER #1 New York Times bestselling author C. J. Box’s Treasure State finds Cassie Dewell in Montana on the trail of a con man. Private Investigator Cassie Dewell’s business is thriving, […]
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Author: Marcia Clark Book: THE FALL GIRL Publishing: Rare Bird Books (September 13, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Lives and lies are inextricably linked by a high-profile murder trial in The Fall Girl, the latest exhilarating legal thriller from bestselling author Marcia Clark. When Charlie Blair left Chicago behind—and her old life as Lauren Claybourne—for a […]
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Author: Colleen Hubbard Book: HOUSEBREAKING: A Novel Publishing:Berkley (April 19, 2022) Synopsis (from Publisher): Following a long-standing feud and looking to settle the score, a woman decides to dismantle her home—alone and by hand—and move it across a frozen pond during a harsh New England winter in this mesmerizing debut. Home is certainly not where […]
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Author: Bobby Finger Book: THE OLD PLACE: A Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (September 20, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A bighearted and moving debut about a wry retired schoolteacher whose decade-old secret threatens to come to light and send shockwaves through her small Texas town. Billington, Texas, is a place where nothing changes. Well, […]
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Author: Sarah Pearse Book: THE RETREAT: A Novel Publishing: Pamela Dorman Books (July 19, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From the New York Times bestselling author of The Sanatorium,a Reese’s Book Club pick, here, Detective Elin Warner uncovers the truth behind the suspicious deaths on a stunning island getaway […]
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Co-Author: Matthew Campbell (with Kit Chellel) Book: DEAD IN THE WATER: A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy Publishing: Portfolio; 1st Edition (May 3, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “A triumph of investigative journalism.” —Tom Wright, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Billion Dollar Whale “Truly one of the most nail-biting, […]
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Author: Jason Reid Book: RISE OF THE BLACK QUARTERBACK: What it Means for America Publishing: Andscape (August 2, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A compulsively readable sports narrative by senior NFL writer for ESPN’s The Undefeated (now Andscape), Jason Reid, chronicling both the history of Black players in the NFL, such as Warren Moon, and […]
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Author: Karin Slaughter Book: GIRL, FORGOTTEN: A Novel Publishing: William Morrow (August 23, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “It’s Slaughter’s prodigious gifts of characterization that make her stand out among thriller writers.” — Washington Post From the New York Times bestselling author of Pieces of Her, comes an electrifying thriller featuring newly minted US Marshal Andrea Oliver as she […]
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Author: Spencer Schneider Book: MANHATTAN CULT STORY: My Unbelievable True Story of Sex, Crimes, Chaos, and Survival Publishing: Arcade (July 5, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “We were invisible. We had to be. We took an oath of absolute secrecy. We never even told our immediate families who we were. We went about our […]
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Author: Kirk Wallace Johnson Book: THE FISHERMEN AND THE DRAGON: Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast Publishing: Viking (August 9, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A gripping, twisting account of a small town set on fire by hatred, xenophobia, and ecological disaster—a story that weaves together corporate malfeasance, a battle […]
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Author: David Pepper Book: A SIMPLE CHOICE: A Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (August 2, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A propulsive political thriller featuring two outsiders caught up in a stunning conspiracy, filled with details and twists that only a true political insider could write. When one of the nation’s most prestigious senators jumps […]
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Author: Dwyer Murphy (editor in chief of CrimeReads) Book: AN HONEST LIVING: A Novel Publishing: Viking (July 26, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “Like the best noir practitioners, Murphy uses the mystery as scaffolding to assemble a world of fallen dreams and doom-bitten characters . . . Murphy’s hard-boiled rendering of the city is […]
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Author: MARK GREANEY Book: ARMORED: A Novel Publishing: Berkley (July 5, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A novel inspired by #1 New York Times best-selling author Mark Greaney’s Audible Original drama, Armored. Joshua Duffy is a Close Protection Agent—a professional bodyguard—and he’s one of the world’s elite operatives. That is, he was until his last […]
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Author: Don Bentley Book: TOM CLANCY ZERO HOUR: A Jack Ryan, Jr. Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (June 7, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Jack Ryan, Jr. is the one man who can prevent a second Korean War in the latest thrilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. When the leader of […]
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Author: Fabian Nicieza Book: THE SELF-MADE WIDOW: A Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (June 21, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): From the cocreator of Deadpool and author of Suburban Dicks comes a diabolically funny murder mystery that features two unlikely sleuths investigating a murder that reveals the dark underbelly of suburban marriage. After mother of […]
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Author: Lucy Clarke Book: ONE OF THE GIRLS: A Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (June 28, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): The latest twisty psychological thriller from internationally-bestselling author Lucy Clarke, One of the Girls is the delicious story of a bachelorette trip on a stunning Greek island… that ends in murder. It was supposed […]
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Author: M.P. Woodward Book: THE HANDLER Publishing: Berkley (May 31, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A disgraced former CIA operative must go back in the field with only his ex-wife as his handler in this electrifying thriller from a former intelligence officer. Meredith Morris-Dale is a CIA case officer and a damn good one…even if […]
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Author: Riley Sager Book: THE HOUSE ACROSS THE LAKE: A Novel Publishing: Dutton (June 21, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Named a most anticipated summer book by People, E! News, PureWow, CNN.com, CrimeReads, POPSUGAR, The Nerd Daily, BookTrib, Mystery Writers of America, Bookish, and Distractify The New York Times bestselling author of Final Girls and […]
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Author: Fiona Barton Book: LOCAL GONE MISSING Publishing: Berkley (June 14, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Detective Elise King investigates a man’s disappearance in a seaside town where the locals and weekenders are at odds in this rich and captivating new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow. Elise King […]
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Author: Sara Blaedel Book: A HARMLESS LIE: A Novel Publishing: Dutton (March 22, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): USA TODAY “5 Books Not To Miss” • NY POST “Required Reading” “Sara Blaedel writes novels as twisty as spirals and electric with intelligence. A HARMLESS LIE is a labyrinth of a mystery, dense and dangerous. Come […]
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Author: Kristan Higgins Book: OUT OF THE CLEAR BLUE SKY: A Novel Publishing: Berkley (June 7, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): From New York Times bestselling author Kristan Higgins comes a funny and surprising new novel about losing it all—and getting back more than you ever expected. Lillie Silva knew life as an empty nester […]
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Author: Carter Bays Book: THE MUTUAL FRIEND: A Novel Publishing: Dutton (June 7, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “This is a rare thing: an original, intelligent novel that’s not just a perfect summer beach read, but one that deserves serious awards consideration as well. Put down your phone and pick it up… A major accomplishment.” […]
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Author: Hernan Diaz Book: TRUST Publishing: Riverhead Books (May 3, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “Buzzy and enthralling …A glorious novel about empires and erasures, husbands and wives, staggering fortunes and unspeakable misery…Fun as hell to read.” —Oprah Daily “A genre-bending, time-skipping story about New York City’s elite in the roaring ’20s and Great Depression.”—Vanity […]
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Author: Don Bentley Book: HOSTILE INTENT: A Matt Drake Novel Publishing: Berkley (May 3, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): In the espionage community, Vienna is known as the City of Spies, and Matt Drake is about to learn why in the latest electrifying thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Tom Clancy Target Acquired […]
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Author: Peter Golenbock Book: WHISPERS OF THE GODS: Takes from Baseball’s Golden Age, Told By the Men Who Played the Game Publishing: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (March 15, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “Anyone who has love for the game of baseball will enjoy this remarkable book.” Library Journal, Starred Review In Whispers of […]
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Author: Sascha Rothchild Book: BLOOD SUGAR: A Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (April 19, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): An utterly delicious debut thriller that tells the story of the most likable murderess you will ever meet, perfect for fans of Riley Sager and Jessica Knoll. “I could just kill you right now!” It’s something […]
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Author: James Rollins Book: KINGDOM OF BONES: A Thriller Publishing: William Morrow (April 19, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): From #1 New York Times bestselling author James Rollins, the latest riveting, deeply imaginative thriller in the Sigma Force series, told with his trademark blend of cutting-edge science, historical mystery, and pulse-pounding action. It begins in […]
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Author: Neal Thompson Book: THE FIRST KENNEDYS: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty Publishing: Mariner Books (February 22, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Based on genealogical breakthroughs and previously unreleased records, this is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped famine, created a life together in a […]
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Author: Susan Jonusas Book: HELL’S HALF-ACRE: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier Publishing: Viking (March 1, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “Rich in historical perspective and graced by novelistic touches, grips the reader from first to last.”—Wall Street Journal A suspense filled tale of murder on the […]
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Author: Lisa Scottoline Book: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BENNETTS: A Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (March 29, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): From #1 bestselling author Lisa Scottoline comes a pulse-pounding new novel. Your family has been attacked, never again to be the same. Now you have to choose between law…and justice. Jason Bennett […]
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Author: Brad Meltzer Book: THE LIGHTNING ROD (A Zig & Nola Novel) Publishing: William Morrow (March 8, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “Nola is the most accomplished kicker of ass since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” —A. J. Finn Zig and Nola are back—in the hugely entertaining, highly anticipated follow-up to Brad Meltzer’s #1 […]
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Author: Brendan Slocumb Book: THE VIOLIN CONSPIRACY: A Novel Publishing: Anchor (February 1, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK! • In this riveting page-turner, Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise—until a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his lost family heirloom violin on […]
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Author/Photographer: Joe Yogerst Book: 50 STATES, 500 CAMPGROUNDS: Where to Go, When to Go, What to See, What to Do Publishing: National Geographic (February 22, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Plan your next getaway to the great outdoors with this one-of-a-kind resource for campgrounds across North America. In this comprehensive sequel to the best-selling 50 […]
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Author: C.J. Box Book: SHADOWS REEL: A Joe Pickett Novel Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (March 8, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett and his wife Marybeth make separate discoveries that put the Pickett family in a pair of killers’ crosshairs in this thrilling new novel in the bestselling series. A […]
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Author: Austin Rogers Book: THE ULTIMATE BOOK OF PUB TRIVIA BY THE SMARTEST GUY IN THE BAR Publishing: Workman Publishing Company (February 22, 2022) Synopsis (by the Publisher): Play the best damn trivia night ever! From one of the pioneers of pub trivia, Jeopardy! champion Austin Rogers, comes the complete resource for playing and running […]
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Author: Samantha Downing Book: FOR YOUR OWN GOOD Publishing: Berkley (July 20, 2021) Synopsis (from the Publisher): INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER “Witty and macabre.”—Caroline Kepnes “Slick and chilling.”—Megan Miranda “I read all of her [books]. I’ve read everything.”—Cecily Strong from SNL for Vanity Fair “A perfect summer book.”—NPR USA Todaybestselling author Samantha Downing is back with […]
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Author: Mark Greaney Book: SIERRA SIX: A Gray Man Novel Publishing: Berkley (February 15, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): It’s been years since the Gray Man’s first mission, but the trouble’s just getting started in the latest entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. Before he was the Gray Man, Court Gentry was […]
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Author: Laurence Leamer Book: CAPOTE’S WOMEN: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (October 12, 2021) Synopsis (from the Publisher): National Bestseller New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote’s never-published final novel, […]
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Author: John Rhodehamel Book: AMERICA’S ORIGINAL SIN: White Supremacy, John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Assassination Publishing: Johns Hopkins University Press (September 7, 2021) Synopsis (from the Publisher): On April 14, 1865, after nearly a year of conspiring, John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln as the president watched a production of Our American Cousin at […]
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Author: Lan Samantha Chang Book: THE FAMILY CHAO: A Novel Publishing: W. W. Norton & Company (February 1, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): One of Literary Hub’s and The Millions’ Most Anticipated Books of 2022 A Goodreads Readers’ Most Anticipated Mystery of 2022 An acclaimed storyteller returns with “a gorgeous and gripping literary mystery” […]
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Author: Kerri Maher Book: THE PARIS BOOKSELLER Publishing: Berkley (January 11, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A BookBub Best Historical Fiction Book of 2022 ∙ A BookTrib Top Ten Historical Fiction Book of Spring ∙ A SheReads’ Best Literary Historical Fiction Coming in 2022 ∙ A Reader’s Digest’s Best Books for Women Written by Female […]
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Author: Lisa Gardner Book: ONE STEP TOO FAR (A Frankie Elkin Novel) Publishing: Dutton (January 18, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a chilling thriller about a young man gone missing in the wilderness of Wyoming…and the secrets uncovered by the desperate effort to find him Timothy […]
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Author: Maya Washington Book: THROUGH THE BANKS OF THE RED CEDAR: My Father and the Team that Changed the Game Publishing: Little A (January 1, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A warm and invigorating memoir about a daughter’s love for her father and her appreciation for how he and others changed the game of […]
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Author: Nick Petrie Book: THE RUNAWAY (A Peter Ash Novel) Publication: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (January 18, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): “Petrie has a preternatural talent for ratcheting up suspense.”–New York Times Book Review When Peter Ash rescues a stranded woman, he finds she’s in far deeper trouble than he could ever imagine in the […]
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Author: John Vandemoer Book: RIGGED JUSTICE: How the College Admissions Scandal Ruined an Innocent Man’s Life Publishing: HarperOne (September 28, 2021) Synopsis (from the Publisher): The former Stanford University sailing coach sentenced in the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal tells the riveting true story of how he was drawn unwittingly into a web of deceit […]
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Author: Elizabeth George Book: SOMETHING TO HIDE: A Lynley Novel Publishing: Viking (January 11, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley are back in the next Lynley novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George. When a police detective is taken off life support after […]
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Author: Jonathan Evison Book: SMALL WORLD: A Novel Publishing: Dutton (January 11, 2022) Synopsis (from the Publisher): One of the LA Times’s 10 Books to Add to Your Reading List This Month! One of Book Culture’s Most Anticipated Reads of January 2021! “A bighearted, widescreen American tale.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred) “Masterpiece…the quintessential Great American Novel.”—Booklist (starred) […]
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Author: Kevin Birmingham Book: THE SINNER AND THE SAINT: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece Publishing: Penguin Press (November 16, 2021) Synopsis (from the Publisher): A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice From the New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Book, the true story behind the creation […]
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Author: Andrew Roberts
Book: THE LAST KING OF AMERICA: The Misunderstood Reign of George III
Publishing: Viking (November 9, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Andrew_Roberts_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
From the New York Times bestselling author of Churchill and Napoleon
The last king of America, George III, has been ridiculed as a complete disaster who frittered away the colonies and went mad in his old age. The truth is much more nuanced and fascinating–and will completely change the way readers and historians view his reign and legacy.
Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon–a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The best-known modern interpretation of him is Jonathan Groff’s preening, spitting, and pompous take in Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway masterpiece. But this deeply unflattering characterization is rooted in the prejudiced and brilliantly persuasive opinions of eighteenth-century revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, who needed to make the king appear evil in order to achieve their own political aims. After combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of never-before-published correspondence, award-winning historian Andrew Roberts has uncovered the truth: George III was in fact a wise, humane, and even enlightened monarch who was beset by talented enemies, debilitating mental illness, incompetent ministers, and disastrous luck.
In The Last King of America, Roberts paints a deft and nuanced portrait of the much-maligned monarch and outlines his accomplishments, which have been almost universally forgotten. Two hundred and forty-five years after the end of George III’s American rule, it is time for Americans to look back on their last king with greater understanding: to see him as he was and to come to terms with the last time they were ruled by a monarch.
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Author: Jeffery Deaver
Book: THE MIDNIGHT LOCK (Lincoln Rhyme Novel)
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (November 30, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Jeffery_Deaver_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The “master of ticking-bomb suspense” (People) Jeffery Deaver delivers the latest thriller featuring his beloved protagonists Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs as they search for a criminal whose fascination with breaking locks terrorizes New York City.
A woman awakes in the morning to find that someone has picked her apartment’s supposedly impregnable door lock and rearranged personal items, even sitting beside her while she slept. The intrusion, the police learn, is a message to the entire city of carnage to come. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are brought in to investigate and soon learn that the sociopathic intruder, who calls himself “the Locksmith,” can break through any lock or security system ever devised. With more victims on the horizon, Rhyme, Sachs and their stable of associates must follow the evidence to the man’s lair… and discover his true mission.
Their hunt is interrupted when an internal investigation in the police force uncovers what seems to be a crucial mistake in one of Rhyme’s previous cases. He’s fired as a consultant for the NYPD and must risk jail if he investigates the Locksmith case in secret.
The Midnight Lock is a roller-coaster read that takes place over just a few days’ time, features surprise after surprise and offers a fascinating look at the esoteric world of lockpicking.
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Author: Poppy Harlow
Book: THE BIGGEST LITTLE BOY: A Christmas Story
Publishing: Viking Books for Young Readers (November 23, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Poppy_Harlow_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
CNN news anchor Poppy Harlow has crafted a Christmas classic with lots of heart. Perfect for holiday gift giving!
Luca loves BIG things. BIG trucks. BIG buildings. BIG bowls of pasta. But what he wants most is the biggest Christmas tree of all. With Christmas approaching, Luca goes in search of a special tree. But he soon finds out that what matters most is having a BIG heart.
CNN news anchor Poppy Harlow has crafted a timeless Christmas story brimming with good cheer and Ramona Kaulitzki brings the festive holiday season to life. The Biggest Little Boy reassures all young readers that they are special, just the way they are.
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Author: JAMES GOLDEN aka Bo Snerdley
Book: RUSH ON THE RADIO: A Tribute from his Sidekick for 30 Years
Publishing: All Seasons Press (November 23, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/James_Golden_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
What was it like to be a part of the supersonic ride on the Rush Limbaugh program, the highest-rated radio show in history that spanned 33 years and changed the American political conversation? James Golden, aka “Bo Snerdley,” was there from the beginning to the final, tearful episodes. As call screener, “Official Show Observer,” and friend of Rush, James shares the stories that grew an audience into tens of millions of devoted listeners. On the air or off, when Rush asked, “What do you think, Mr. Snerdley?” he meant it. James agreed, and disagreed, with Rush over the years, but they held the same values. “Rush’s legacy must be is framed truthfully and properly. The stories must not be lost. In fact, we need them now more than ever.”
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Author: Jason Mott
Book: HELL OF A BOOK: A Novel
Publishing: Dutton (June 29, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Jason_Mott_to_air.mp3
Synopsis (from the Publisher):
*2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER***
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Winner of the 2021 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction
Longlisted for the 2022 Carnegie Medal Fiction, the 2021 Joyce Carol Oates Prize and the 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize
A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!
One of Washington Post‘s 50 Notable Works of Fiction | One of Shelf Awareness’s Top Ten Fiction Titles of the Year | One of TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books | One of NPR.org’s “Books We Love” | One of the New York Public Library’s Best Books for Adults | One of Entertainment Weekly‘s 15 Books you Need to Read This June | On Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List” | One of The NY Post‘s Best Summer Reading books | One of GMA’s 27 Books for June | One of USA Today‘s 5 Books Not to Miss | One of Fortune‘s 21 Most Anticipated Books Coming out in the Second Half of 2021| One of The Root‘s PageTurners: It’s Getting Hot in Here | One of Real Simple‘s Best New Books to Read in 2021
An astounding work of fiction from a New York Times bestselling author Jason Mott, always deeply honest, at times electrically funny, that goes to the heart of racism, police violence, and the hidden costs exacted upon Black Americans, and America as a whole
In Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book, a Black author sets out on a cross-country publicity tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives Hell of a Book and is the scaffolding of something much larger and urgent: since Mott’s novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.
As these characters’ stories build and build and converge, they astonish. For while this heartbreaking and magical book entertains and is at once about family, love of parents and children, art and money, it’s also about the nation’s reckoning with a tragic police shooting playing over and over again on the news. And with what it can mean to be Black in America.
Who has been killed? Who is The Kid? Will the author finish his book tour, and what kind of world will he leave behind? Unforgettably told, with characters who burn into your mind and an electrifying plot ideal for book club discussion, Hell of a Book is the novel Mott has been writing in his head for the last ten years. And in its final twists it truly becomes its title.
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Author: Dirk Cussler
Book: CLIVE CUSSLER’S THE DEVIL’S SEA
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (November 16, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Dirk_Cussler_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Fearless adventurer Dirk Pitt must unravel a historical mystery of epic importance in the latest novel in the beloved New York Times bestselling series created by the “grand master of adventure” Clive Cussler.
In 1959 Tibet, a Buddhist artifact of immense importance was seemingly lost to history in the turmoil of the Communist takeover. But when National Underwater and Marine Agency Director Dirk Pitt discovers a forgotten plane crash in the Philippine Sea over 60 years later, new clues emerge to its hidden existence.
But Pitt and his compatriot Al Giordino have larger worries when they are ordered to recover a failed hypersonic missile from Luzon Strait. Only someone else is after it, too…a rogue Chinese military team that makes their own earthshattering discovery, hijacking a ship capable of stirring the waters of the deep into a veritable Devil’s Sea.
From the cold dark depths of the Pacific Ocean to the dizzying heights of the Himalaya Mountains, only Dirk Pitt and his children, Summer and Dirk Jr., can unravel the mysteries that will preserve a religion, save a nation…and save the world from war.
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Author: David Baldacci
Book: MERCY: An Atlee Pine Thriller
Publishing: Grand Central Publishing (November 16, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/David_Baldacci_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
FBI Agent Atlee Pine’s harrowing search for her long-lost sister Mercy reaches a boiling point in this breakneck thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci.
For her entire life, FBI agent Atlee Pine has been searching for her twin sister, Mercy, who was abducted at the age of six and never seen again. Mercy’s disappearance left behind a damaged family that later shattered beyond repair when Atlee’s parents inexplicably abandoned her.
Now, after a perilous investigation that nearly proved fatal, Atlee has finally discovered not only the reason behind her parents’ abandonment and Mercy’s kidnapping, but also the most promising breakthrough yet: proof that Mercy survived her abduction and then escaped her captors many years ago.
Though Atlee is tantalizingly close to her family at last, the final leg of her long road to Mercy will be the most treacherous yet. Mercy left at least one dead body behind before fleeing her captors years before. Atlee has no idea if her sister is still alive, and if so, how she has been surviving all this time. When the truth is finally revealed, Atlee Pine will face the greatest danger yet, and it may well cost her everything.
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Author: Naomi Krupitsky
Book: THE FAMILY: A Novel
Publishing: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (November 2, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Naomi_Krupitsky_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The Instant New York Times bestseller
A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick
A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself.
Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate.
Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love.
But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women, wives, mothers, and leaders. Their hearts expand in tandem with Red Hook and Brooklyn around them, as they push against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fight to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship. One fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested. Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.
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Author: Christina Baker Kline
Book: THE EXILES: A Novel
Publishing: Custom House (August 25, 2020)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Christina_Baker_Kline_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
OPTIONED FOR TELEVISION BY BRUNA PAPANDREA, THE PRODUCER OF HBO’S BIG LITTLE LIES
“A tour de force of original thought, imagination and promise … Kline takes full advantage of fiction — its freedom to create compelling characters who fully illuminate monumental events to make history accessible and forever etched in our minds.” — Houston Chronicle
The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel about three women whose lives are bound together in nineteenth-century Australia and the hardships they weather together as they fight for redemption and freedom in a new society.
Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel—a skilled midwife and herbalist—is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom. Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.
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Author: Daniel de Vise
Book: KING OF THE BLUES: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King
Publishing: Grove Press (October 5, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Daniel_De_Vise_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
The first full and authoritative biography of an American—indeed a world-wide—musical and cultural legend.
“No one worked harder than B.B. No one inspired more up-and-coming artists. No one did more to spread the gospel of the blues.”—President Barack Obama
“He is without a doubt the most important artist the blues has ever produced.”—Eric Clapton
Riley “Blues Boy” King (1925-2015) was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a local minister’s guitar and by the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, encouraged by his cousin, the established blues man Bukka White, B.B. taught his guitar to sing in the unique solo style that, along with his relentless work ethic and humanity, became his trademark. In turn, generations of artists claimed him as inspiration, from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana and the Edge.
King of the Blues presents the vibrant life and times of a trailblazing giant. Witness to dark prejudice and lynching in his youth, B.B. performed incessantly (some 15,000 concerts in 90 countries over nearly 60 years)—in some real way his means of escaping his past. Several of his concerts, including his landmark gig at Chicago’s Cook County Jail, endure in legend to this day. His career roller-coasted between adulation and relegation, but he always rose back up. At the same time, his story reveals the many ways record companies took advantage of artists, especially those of color.
Daniel de Visé has interviewed almost every surviving member of B.B. King’s inner circle—family, band members, retainers, managers, and more—and their voices and memories enrich and enliven the life of this Mississippi blues titan, whom his contemporary Bobby “Blue” Bland simply called “the man.”
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Author: Jay Jay French (with Steve Farber)
Book: TWISTED BUSINESS: Lessons from My Life in Rock ‘N’ Roll
Publishing: RosettaBooks (September 21, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Jay_Jay_French_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
Jay Jay French—founder, guitarist, and manager of the world-famous heavy metal band Twisted Sister—delivers his “bizoir”: part memoir and part business primer.
In addition to founding Twisted Sister, a world-famous heavy metal band that has sold more than 20 million records worldwide, Jay Jay French is one of the top entrepreneurs in entertainment. After taking over as manager in the ‘70s, French developed Twisted Sister into the most heavily licensed heavy metal band in history, leading the group to perform more than 9,000 shows in forty countries.
Part business book, part memoir, Twisted Business is an unexpected, inspiring, whirlwind story of transformation and redemption. Twisted Business follows French’s adventure-filled life—from growing up in New York City in the sixties, to working as a drug dealer and struggling as an addict before quitting cold-turkey, and finally, to creating and cultivating Twisted Sister and turning it into one of the most successful brands in the world.
Together with his mentor, Steve Farber, a best-selling author and one of the world’s top leadership and management experts, French offers unique, hard-earned tips and advice from his nearly 50 years as a musician, music business manager, and entrepreneur. French shows how, through tenacity, grit, and dedication, anyone can create their own brand, grow a successful business, re-invent themselves, or simply find success in what they love to do. Entertaining, provocative, funny, and informative, this book is the trip of a lifetime and a treasured guide for entrepreneurs, business people, and music fans alike.
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Author: Rich Podolsky
Book: YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE!: How The NFL Today Revolutionized Sports Broadcasting
Publishing: Lyons Press (October 15, 2021)
https://kscj.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Rich_Podolsky_to_air.mp3 Synopsis (from the Publisher):
You Are Looking Live! is about the genesis, success and magic of a live television show that in 1975 captured the excitement of the country, and launched four magnetic personalities to stardom: Brent Musburger, Phyllis George, Irv Cross and Jimmy The Greek Snyder. It was truly a piece of Americana. It was the first NFL studio show to go live and the first to have both a Black and female co-host. Those four personalities battled each other and the competition, and America loved them for it. This is the story of how Brent, Phyllis, Irv and Jimmy got there, their drama and front-page headlines, and what happened to them after the magic ended. Those headlines included Brent and The Greek’s famous fight at Peartrees, Phyllis first marrying the man who produced The Godfather, then dropping him after two months for the next governor of Kentucky, and the shocking firing of Musburger on April Fool’s Day, 1990. America had never seen a show like this before. On the East Coast and the Midwest, people would literally rush home from church to hear what they had to say, and on the West Coast fans loved waking up to it. The NFL Today became so popular that it not only dominated the ratings, but also won its timeslot 18 straight years, from 1975 to 1993, until CBS lost its NFL package to Fox. And today, looking back, these four personalities, like any family, had their own battles, and became even more famous for them.
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