Speaking of Writers: Recent Episodes

Steve Richards

Welcome to Speaking of Writers. Veteran broadcaster Steve Richards interviews local, regional and best selling authors. For more info email steve @ sval622@sbcglobal.net. Cover art photo provided by Janko Ferlič on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/@thepootphotographer Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/steve-richards/support

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Xavier “Priest” Priestly is a snarky former seminarian turned private investigator. Dusty Queen is a hard-as-nails professional stuntwoman and freelance bodyguard. When Dusty’s girlfriend suddenly disappears, a woman in a strange blue wig tries to assassinate Priest, and a twelve-year-old boy shows up claiming to be his son, the two friends are thrown into a maelstrom of intrigue and high-stakes violence that’s as convoluted and dangerous as it is hilarious.

Thankfully, Priest and Dusty don’t have to navigate these tangled mysteries alone. Aided by a lawyer, who’s underwhelmed by their extra-legal methods; a straight-laced detective, who doesn’t trust them as far as he can throw them; and Priest’s father, a notorious bank robber, they are well equipped to deal with potential kidnapping and attempted murder. But whether Priest is up to the challenge of a son with a gun, a backpack full of weed, and a major attitude problem … well, that’s a different story.

With its unforgettable cast, parade of twists and turns, and breakneck pace, The Seminarian showcases Hart Hanson at his best. Packed with action and glistening with snappy dialogue, surprising tenderness, and (mostly) good people doing some exceptionally bad things, this distinctive thriller is as entertaining as it is insightful.

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In life, the choices we make determine our levels of success or regret. Ultra successful people (the superrich) rarely take a look back at the lessons of the past. ­That privilege is often reserved for the regretful, and whether we show it or not, many of us have our secret regrets.

What if you realized that you were a regretful success? But that doesn’t make sense, does it? Who would regret their success? Who would want to struggle? What if those struggles were needed to help in revealing your character and what you thought of as weaknesses turned out to be your greatest strengths? How would you function knowing you had to struggle to get to where you wanted to go? Would you do it? Could you do it?

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There are so many questions, and over time I’ve realized that asking questions will not only get you answers but will also lead to more questions. If you don’t know when to stop asking questions, then the answers cease to be of use, and when the answers aren’t useful, you stop asking questions and so on and so forth. But how can you fix a system if you’re not a part of it? According to developmental psychology, there are certain keystone events that should happen over the average lifetime. What happens when that order changes? Does that mean that the rules don’t apply? That doesn’t sound like a normal train of thought, does it? But what is normal anyway?

I’ve never been normal or average. I’m a mystery, a conundrum, a 1,000-piece puzzle with a single piece missing. ­The missing piece used to change every day, but over time, it became clear that my missing piece was indeed a “missing peace” and that I would need the God’s help and plenty of heart to ‑ fight my way through numerous battles, facing more than my fair share of adversities.

After God sat me down to talk over something, I told him, “­Thank you.” But then I also said, “­That’s f**ked up, God.”

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Keith O’Brien’s CHARLIE HUSTLE is the definitive story of Pete Rose's rise and fall, built with the help of federal court documents never utilized before, interviews with three former associates who placed Pete's bets on baseball, 27 hours of interviews with Pete himself, and over 150 hours of interviews in all. It is the story unlike it's ever been told before at a time when Pete's greatest sin—gambling on sports—is now legal in most places and encouraged by baseball itself. This year, Americans are on pace to legally wager $130 billion on sports, a new record.

CHARLIE HUSTLE is also a snapshot of baseball and America during a time when everything changed. Between 1960 and 1989—Pete's career in baseball—the game transitioned from being an unpolished national pastime, rough around the edges and to a diverse, billion-dollar sport covered by 24-hour news networks. Pete's many misdeeds in the shadows would not be tolerated in this new world. And the book makes clear that Pete self-destructs off the field for the same reason why he ever succeeded on it. Put simply: He refused to lose. He refused to break. He refused to tell the truth about his addictions, until it was too late.

KEITH O’BRIEN is the New York Times bestselling author of Paradise Falls, Fly Girls, and Outside Shot, a finalist for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting, and an award-winning journalist. O’Brien has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico, and his stories have also appeared on National Public Radio and This American Life. He lives in New Hampshire.

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Janelle Wolf longs to be the woman she once was, an adored wife, a loving mother, a career woman, a force in her community—before a mysterious car accident stole her memories, ruined her reputation, and upended her life.

These days, her troubled family needs that capable woman from the past, the one she calls “Janelle Before.” Enter Lana, an alluring and magnetic psychic healer who meets secretly with Janelle. Lana coaxes Janelle to remember the circumstances of her accident in order to recover Janelle’s “best self.” Instead, Janelle uncovers the ugly truth behind that night. The revelations unravel Janelle’s marriage, disrupt her family, and turn her small southern town upside down. Written with wry humor, this diabolically entertaining tale of deception, temptation, and love is filled with dark twists, exploring what happens when the transgressions of the past come back with a vengeance.

Mindy Friddle is author of the novel, Secret Keepers, (winner of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction). The Garden Angel, her first novel and SIBA bestseller, was selected for Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers. The South Carolina Arts Commission awarded Mindy a prose fellowship, and she has twice won the state’s Fiction Prize. Her stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson and lives on Edisto Island, South Carolina.

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Portrait artist Elly Sorenson leaves her Washington, D.C., life for the Caribbean island of Bonaire, hoping to find refuge from personal tragedy and financial fallout. Instead,she is confronted by old demons, including a gambling underworld that taps paranormal talents she would prefer to leave dormant. On the island she finds an unlikely kindred spirit in teenager Rosie Ryan, an Australian with a gambling father and artistic talents of her own—and a penchant for breaking and entering, particularlyinto the rooms of other guests. Against a backdrop of a gathering storm, Rosie is blamed for a freak diving accident, and the stakes at the gambling table mount.Nobody is safe, least of all Elly, whose whole life, it seems, hangs on one final game. Underestimated by the men around them, Rosie and Elly must conquer forces theynever imagined and fight for a future that promises real freedom.

Mary Carroll Moore is a bestselling and award-winning author of 14 books in 3 genres, including the PEN/Faulkner-and Lambda Literary Awards nominated young adult novel, Qualities of Light, the prequel to the best seller, A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue. She received her MFA from Goddard College and hastaught throughout the US and abroad at various writing schools and universities since 1998. Her writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “Reader’s Choice” award. Before moving into fiction, she worked as a chef, a cooking-school owner, a cookbook author, and a syndicatedcolumnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her first cookbook won a Julia Child/IACP award. Over two hundred of her essays, stories, and articles have appeared in magazines and literary journals. She lives in New Hampshire with her family.

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From the acclaimed author of Marley and Finn, a novel both intimate and epic capturing Ulysses S. Grant during his final days as he reflects on his life and reckons with his complicated legacy.

About the Author:

Jon Clinch is the author of the acclaimed novels Finn,Kings of the Earth, The Thief of Auschwitz, Belzoni Dreams of Egypt, and Marley. A native of upstate New York, he lives with his wife in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

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Behind the Hedgerows is a fictional drama about human nature and the conflicts that go with it.

It is 1987 in the Hamptons. Cocaine is the drug of choice, AIDS is rampant, and the Old Guard is trying to hang on as new money invades Long Island's East End. Hunter McPherson, East Hampton resident, entrepreneur, and fitness trainer to those of wealth, takes the reader "south of the highway" behind the manicured hedgerows for a firsthand look at the opulent and romanticized lives of the privileged few who live there.

Privy to the entitled and deceitful world of his clients, Hunter is faced with a growing cynicism as those with massive egos, limitless greed, and needs for hedonistic pleasure test his moral resolve at every turn. Presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at creating his own wealth, Hunter cashes in on the dark secrets of his clients, using what he has learned to wield his own form of leverage, control, and power. In the process, lives are forever changed, including his own.

About the author

Behind the Hedgerows is Tim Smith's first novel. Having formerly lived in East Hampton, New York and Tamarindo, Costa Rica, he now resides fulltime in Sarasota, Florida were he works as a commercial actor. Learn more at timothykentsmith.net. And for more info on the book click HERE

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This book is a visual journey taking the reader beyond their own mundane reality, leading them to a place of peace and calm within their mind.

Author Information Robin is a Canadian Born author/surrealism abstract artist with a multi-cultural heritage of UK: Central Southern England, Northwestern European (Walse, Scottish-having descended through the Baldwin Clan, which is connected to the Stuart Clan which was the Clan of Mary Stuart who was the Queen of (Scots) Scotland. Irish as well as Norwegian, Swedish, Cyprus. African: Nigerian, Benin & Togo, Cameroon, Congo & Wester Bantu, Mali, and Senegal as well as First Nations Indigenous: Blackfoot and Cherokee. Growing up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as an under-privileged child. Robin persevered through life’s many challenges earning 5 post graduate diplomas. Robin has always enjoyed letting her mind go free and drawing with no thought or expectation as to what it would be and being amazed upon its completion. Seeing what the result was. This allowed Robin to escape reality if only for a short time to create what the soul wanted or needed to bare. Journey Beyond with Robin Hosking is Robin’s fifth book. Her first four being books of poetry.Book InformationJourney Beyond with Robin Hosking is a visually inspired book that will help the reader to transcend to a place of peace and calm. Helping the reader look within themselves to find the beauty of things they normally would have overlooked. Journey Beyond with Robin Hosking will help one to experience an inner, spiritual, and imaginative journey connecting them with a deeper part of themselves that they have forgotten. Allowing them to realize the truth of themselves.

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Danny Ryan is rich. Beyond his wildest dreams rich.

The former dock worker, Irish mob soldier and fugitive from the law is now a respected businessman – a Las Vegas casino mogul and billionaire silent partner in a group that owns two lavish hotels. Finally, Danny has it all: a beautiful house, a child he adores, a woman he might even fall in love with.

Life is good.

But then Danny reaches too far.

When he tries to buy an old hotel on a prime piece of real estate with plans to build his dream resort, he triggers a war against Las Vegas power brokers, a powerful FBI agent bent on revenge and a rival casino owner with dark connections of his own.

Danny thought he had buried his past, but now it reaches up to him from the grave to pull him down. Old enemies surface, and when they come for Danny they vow to take everything – not only his empire, not just his life, but all that he holds dear, including his son.

To save his life and everything he loves, Danny must become the ruthless fighter he once was – and never wanted to be again.

Ranging from the gritty back rooms of Providence, RI to the power corridors of Washington, DC and Wall Street to the golden casinos of Las Vegas, City in Ruins is an epic crime novel of love and hate, ambition and desperation, vengeance and compassion.

About the author

Don Winslow is the author of twenty-one acclaimed, award-winning international bestsellers, including the New York Times bestsellers The Force and The Border, the #1 international bestseller The Cartel, The Power of the Dog, Savages, and The Winter of Frankie Machine. Savages was made into a feature film by three-time Oscar-winning writer-director Oliver Stone. The Power of the Dog, The Cartel and The Border sold to FX in a major multimillion-dollar deal to air as a weekly television series beginning in 2020. A former investigator, antiterrorist trainer and trial consultant, Winslow lives in California and Rhode Island.

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Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to life: the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field.
In Baker’s hands the city and the game emerge from the murk of nineteenth-century American life—driven by visionaries and fixers, heroes and gangsters. He details how New York and its favorite sport came to mirror one another, expanding, bumbling through catastrophe and corruption, and rising out of these trials stronger than ever.
From the first innings played in vacant lots and tavern yards in the 1820s; to the canny innovations that created the very first sports league; to the superb Hispanic and Black players who invented their own version of the game when white baseball sought to exclude them. And all amidst New York’s own, incredible evolution from a raw, riotous town to a new world city. The New York Game is a riveting, rollicking, brilliant ode to America’s beloved pastime and to its indomitable city of origin.

About the author

Kevin Baker (born 1958) is an American novelist, historian, and journalist. He was born in Englewood, New Jersey, and grew up in New Jersey and Rockport, Massachusetts.

He has been a professional writer since the age of 13, working originally for the Gloucester Daily Times, Gloucester, Mass., as a stringer covering covering school-boy sports. He had to learn to type to keep the job. He graduated from Columbia University, where he majored in political science, in 1980.

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This book is for those who truly want more out of life. Living paycheck to paycheck gets old, does it not? A budget truly is imperative to adhere to. But, it is not the only step in becoming financially literate. You do not have to be living paycheck to paycheck to get anything out of this book, nor struggling financially. There is always room for improvement, and always time that should be set aside to ensure your retention of financial proficiency.

The “small” tweaks you make day to day, paycheck to paycheck can, and will produce beautiful dividends in the long run. This book isn’t going to get me rich. But, I know.

Sgt. Randy Ray Rhodes J.R, a United States Marine located at Wounded Warrior Battalion-East, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Known to many as the Marine that completed not only one year worth of the commandant’s reading list, but seven. Totaling 152 book reports within a span of three years. No one had ever seen at least one year completed. Sgt Rhodes used the knowledge and his love for reading, and his family. To fuel his passion for financial literacy to help all those around him. Especially sitting down with many Marines and sailors to ensure that they don’t have to struggle financially. Some are not taught financial literacy. But now, He wants to help you. He is a man of Christian faith, a father, and a Marine. But, you may be thinking “is he a “Rhodes”...Scholar”?

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ABOUT THE BOOKSummer, 1939. The glittering Côte d’Azur is having a particularly brilliant season, as the world’s wealthiest vacationers collide with Hollywood’s illustrious movie stars for the first-ever film festival onthe French Riviera.Into this hothouse playground comes an American named Annabel Faucon. Having left a dead-end job and a broken heart back in New York, she’s escaped to a summer stint at the fabulous Grand Hotel, where her uncle is the manager. But when a major movie studio brings its flock of stars to stay at the hotel, Annabel is handpicked to “keep an eye on” two of the mysterious arrivals: a screenwriter who’s been “in his cups” and a renegade actor who keeps luring the studio’s female star into his independent productions.The arrival of Nazi guests only intensifies the situation. Suddenly everyone is watching everybody else during this feverish last summer before the outbreak of World War II. Faced with international spies who will stop at nothing to get what they want, Annabel finds herself embroiled in murder, intrigue, and a race against the clock to disrupt a secret Nazi communications system.Inspired by true events and the histories of three great hotels on the Côte d’Azur—with appearances by such real-life luminaries as Marlene Dietrich, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Cagney, and Mae West—The Girl from the Grand Hotel is a brilliant page-turner that is not to be missed.CAMILLE AUBRAY is the IndieBound bestselling author of Cooking for Picasso and The Godmothers. Her novels made the “best books” lists of People, Newsweek, BuzzFeed, Parade, the Boston Globe, Cosmopolitan, Fodor’s Travel, Veranda, the Indie Next List for Reading Groups, and Amazon’s Celebrity Picks. Aubray was an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship winner, a writer in residence at the Karolyi Foundation in the South of France, and a finalist at the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference, and she has written television drama and documentary. To hear about her novels, recipes, and the locales that inspired her, visit her website at www.CamilleAubray.com

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Edgar and Barry Award finalist Mike Lawson resumes his beloved Joe DeMarco series with a pulse-pounding thriller starring the Washington DC “troubleshooter” as he tries to pin down a Boston billionaire soaring at the top of the world in KINGPIN (Atlantic Monthly Press). As evidenced by his ever growing Boston empire, Carson Newman doesn’t usually get his hands dirty. Joe DeMarco, on the other hand, is paid to do that, and by the former Speaker of the House, John Mahoney.Brian Lewis, an intense workaholic interning for Mahoney, has been found dead in his apartment, purportedly from a drug overdose. But Brian never showed signs of drug use prior to his death, and he coincidentally seemed to be on the cusp of releasing a report identifying a group of politicians who had taken bribes to help dismantle a recent bill. Brian’s mother is convinced that her son was murdered because of what he’d learned. While DeMarco reaches a similar conclusion, all evidence only points to the sheer impossibility of a murder ever having happened: a locked door to a thirdfloor apartment with locked windows and no fire escape ladder, and no defensive wounds on Brian’s body. In a city full of shadowy agreements and duplicitous deals, DeMarco will soon learn that to get to the bottom of Brian’s death, he’ll have to look at people perched at the very top of the world.MIKE LAWSON is a former senior civilian executive for the US Navy. He is the Edgar Award nominated author of more than fifteen novels starring Joe DeMarco and three novels with his protagonist Kay Hamilton.

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Boo Trundle is a writer, artist, and performer whosework has appeared across various platforms and publications, including The Brooklyn Rail, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and NPR’s The Moth. She hasreleased three albums of original music with Big Deal Records. She lives in New Jersey. The Daughter Ship is her first novel.

Katherine, an attentive mother to her teenagers, comfortably married to her strapping provider of a husband, longs to overcome her dark thoughts and intermittent fears of sexual intimacy.
This brisk, mesmerizing version of her life is told in alternating short chapters by Truitt, Star, and Smooshed Bug—her inner children, each with their particular strategy for coping with Katherine’s past at the hands of a hopeless mother and a terrifying, seductive father. Several of her female ancestors, Confederate widows and their daughters, who’ve imposed a legacy of racism and damage on her bloodline, also join the telling.
The assembled ghosts and contenders for Katherine’s ear are gathered in a rusting WWII submarine off the coast of Virginia Beach where the truth of her life is, quite literally, submerged. Will they surface with it? Will they protect her from it, or deliver it to her?
This unforgettable chorus of charming selves, battling over Katherine’s wellbeing, is unified by their hope for her future, as they collaborate to shape a personal narrative like no other we’ve experienced in fiction.For more info on the book click HERE

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In the tradition of Blood in the Garden and Three Ring Circus, Kingdom on Fire presents a bold narrative history of the iconic UCLA Bruins championship teams led by legendary coach John Wooden. This incredible true story about the messy, never-easy pursuit of perfection led by Wooden is not your typical sports book: Kingdom on Fire is the story of a team and a time, placing an unprecedented seven title winning streak against a fractured America of the 1960s and 70s.Los Angeles native and longtime sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times, Scott Howard Cooper draws on more than 100 interviews and access to many of the principal figures--Bill Walton, Wooden’s family, and Jerry West among other key sources—to deliver a rich narrative that reveals the turmoil at the heart of this storied college basketball program.

Scott Howard-Cooper has covered professional and college sports since the 1980s for some of the most prominent outlets in the country, including the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and more. His work has earned multiple national awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Professional Basketball Writers Association for projects, game coverage, features, and columns. He graduated from USC with a degree in political science and lives in northern California.

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In STILL SEE YOU EVERYWHERE, Frankie Elkin is suddenly contacted by Kaylee Pierson, “the Beautiful Butcher,” a notorious serial killer who viciously murdered eighteen men. Pierson – on death row in Texas with only 21 days left to live – has received a tip on the whereabouts of her beloved younger sister Leilani, who was kidnapped more than a decade earlier and may be in the clutches of Pierson’s wealthy ex-boyfriend. Fearing for her sister’s life, Pierson desperately needs Frankie’s help. Despite her reservations, Frankie is compelled to search for a missing person who might still be alive -- before her only sister meets her death.

Welcome to Pomaikai. Nothing here is as simple as it first appears. With no time to lose, Frankie finds herself traveling undercover to an ecolodge development project on an isolatedisland south of Hawaii that boasts gorgeous ocean views, deserted beaches, and incomparable endemic wildlife but hasno cell signal, no reliable internet, unpredictable extreme weather, and where emergency help is at least three daysaway. On arrival, Frankie encounters eleven fellow contract workers and gets the immediate sense that most of themare lying to her. But why? And how much will it cost her to discover the truth?Off the grid and entirely on her own, Frankie must quickly sort out friend and foe. But Frankie’s superpower is heradaptability, and she is soon following increasingly dangerous leads as she edges closer to the truth. Heart-pounding,twisty, and atmospheric, STILL SEE YOU EVERYWHEREshows that even paradise can come with its own dangerous edge.

Lisa Gardner is a #1 New York Times bestselling thriller novelist with over 30 million copies of her books in print worldwide and published in over 30 languages. A self-described research junkie, Lisa has transformed her interest in police procedure and criminal minds into a streak of internationally acclaimed novels. Her novel, The Neighbor, won Best Hardcover Novel from the International Thriller Writers, and she has also been honored for her work with animal rescue and at-risk children. An avid hiker, gardener and cribbage player, Lisa lives with her family in New England. STILL SEE YOU EVERYWHERE is her 28th book. For more information about Lisa, please visit her website www.lisagardner.com or follow her on facebook.com/LisaGardnerBks, Instagram @LisaGardnerBks or X @LisaGardnerBks

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When a young girl suddenly finds herself thrust into the spotlight, she must decide what she will do. Will she leave her peaceful village? Will she give up the life she knows for one that she wants even more, even if it means leaving her family and friends?

Tyr'Ynyn has become the newest healer and must set out to train for her new life. She's leaving behind her best friends and her family to embark on a new career that found her by coincidence. Along the way, she picks up friends in the most unlikely of places and meets her new mentor, a young wyvern, who is also setting out on his first mission to train his first apprentice. Together they learn from each other, and their bond grows strong, but will it be enough to defeat the one who seeks to destroy them?

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Percival Drake is the prince of Edelheim and the heir to the throne, and with his father’s ever-worsening illness, it seems he’ll take that throne soon. Until, for the first time in 150 years, Edelheim is invited to attend a council of nobles in the neighboring kingdom of Aethel. And then, disaster strikes, the Temple of Last Rest where the council is being held is destroyed, and Percival is caught in the middle of it all. Now disowned by his family, armed with a blade cursed by ancient magic, and on the run, he must navigate an unfamiliar world while coming to terms with his sins, his identity, and the dark legacy of House Drake.Elias Karo is a 19 year old writer from Bozeman, Montana. He has been writing since 2013, and in his free time enjoys playing fantasy RPG video games and TTRPGs like Dungeons and Dragons 5e and Call of Cthulluh 7e. Blood and Stone is his first published novel.

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For a sixteen-year-old, a summer internship working for a private investigator seems like a dream come true—particularly since the PI is investigating the most shocking crime to hit Bloomington, Indiana, in decades. A local woman has vanished, and the last time anyone saw her, she was in the backseat of a police car driven by a man impersonating an officer.Marshall Miller’s internship puts him at the center of the action, a position he relishes until a terrifying moment that turns public praise for his sharp observations and uncanny memory into accusations of lying and imperiling the case. His detective mentor withdraws, friends and family worry and whisper, and Marshall alone understands that the darkness visiting his town this summer goes far beyond a single crime. Now his task is to explain it—and himself.Lost Man's Lane is a coming-of-age tale of terror that proves why its author has been hailed as “a master” by Stephen King and one who consistently offers “eerie, gripping storytelling” by Dean Koontz.

Scott Carson is the pen name of Michael Koryta, a New York Times bestselling author whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages, adapted into major motion pictures, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A former private investigator and reporter, his writing has been praised by Stephen King, Michael Connelly, and Dean Koontz, among many others. Raised in Bloomington, Indiana, he now lives in Indiana and Maine.

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Shortly after a corrupt attorney pays a visit to an inmate serving a life sentence in a federal supermax prison, people from the inmate’s past start to die. Bryce Chandler, a retired FBI agent eking out a living as a private investigator in the Florida Keys, ties the string of killings to a shadowy murder-for-hire organization operating on the dark web. As Bryce digs into the murders, he discovers the final name on the hit list is his own.
Meanwhile, a simple divorce case turns out to be much more than meets the eye, as Bryce’s investigation of the defendant leads him down a path of international drug smuggling, money laundering, and violent henchmen bent on keeping him silent. The two storylines run parallel to one another until they eventually converge in a final bloody outcome.About the author

Steve Lazarus is a first-time author, retired FBI Special Agent, and United States Air Force veteran. He served twenty-two years in the FBI, spending the first half of his career investigating drug trafficking organizations and violent street gangs. Later, he became a full-time bomb technician, an assignment which led him to Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan as part of the Global War on Terror. After retiring from the Bureau, he spent several years as a national security contractor in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Steve lives on the South Carolina coast with his wife Susan and their amazing wonder dog, Aspen.

Steve’s debut novel was inspired by one of his real-life cases. After arresting a subject who threatened to unleash a bioterror attack on the Atlanta subway system, Steve and his partner found themselves of the receiving end of a death threat from the soon-to-be convicted felon. And though that subject would spend the next 25 years in prison, Steve couldn’t help but wonder….what if he could make good on his threat, even from behind bars? The most logical solution would be if he hired a hit man, and….voila!!!! A novel was born. Written over the course of a year in Abu Dhabi, the Florida Keys, and Texas hill country, “Call Me Sonny” was a labor of love incorporating the personalities, anecdotes, and experiences of Steve’s multi-faceted FBI career, and if things work out as planned, it will be the first in a series of Bryce Chandler crime thrillers.

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This story is about Log and Stick. They’re two characters, called Log and Stick, and they live in San Jose, CA. Log is a wood log and Stick is a wood stick. They have been together since their childhood, with an enemy called Evil Leaf. Leaf’s name was originally “Good Leaf”, but people around him called him “Evil Leaf” because of the acts he would do. Then, years later, all three of them had graduated from college. Then Evil Leaf started to cook up a plan… to steal Dubai’s Ruby! Not so soon later, Log and Stick found out about this, and started to go after him. First in San Jose, then in Dubai.

Ritvik Gautam was born on May 13, 2012 in New Delhi, India. When Ritvik was 7 in California, he was surrounded by technology. He used to draw lots of stuff, like cars. Then one day he was drawing and then he said to himself, “Why don’t I make a book with my drawings?” Then he was researching which types of books contained ONLY drawings. That’s when he came across comics. He fell in love with them immediately. Then he made a small book “Cat Man 2”, but it wasn’t successful. He didn’t cry over spilled milk though, he wrote and published another book called “Log and Stick” when he was 8 years old, inspired by the comic book franchise “Dog Man”. Then he made a small book called “The Missing Key”. Since Log and Stick was only half of the actual first story, he’s working on the second part right now called “Log and Stick: Part 2”.

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About The New Couple in 5B

Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad’s late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the building is the epitome of old New York charm. One would almost never suspect the dark history lurking behind its perfectly maintained facade.
At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn’t feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there’s more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell.

With echoes of “Rosemary’s Baby” and Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” THE NEW COUPLE IN 5B is achilling warning that even the place you think of as home may be built on dark secrets and lies

About Lisa Unger

LISA UNGER is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty novels, including Confessions on the 7:45 and Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six. An award-winning and acclaimed writer with millions of readers worldwide, Lisa is widely regarded as a master of suspense. Her books are published in thirty-three languages and have been voted "Best of the Year" or top picks by the Today show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, Amazon, IndieBound and many others. In 2019, her novel Under My Skin and her short story "The Sleep Tight Motel" were both nominated for the prestigious Edgar Award. Her nonfiction work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR and Travel + Leisure. Lisa lives on the west coast of Florida with her family.

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I wrote this book to help other pretty and beautiful women to wake to being lied to, abused, and manipulated by men to get them to marry them. Your life is your journey; no one else's and you should pay attention to your inner feelings. You do not have to live up to other's expectations or approval. You are you and there is not another one like you. Make your special place and make it the way you want it to be. When you hear criticism, do you think that it is true, or that you are doing something different from others' ideas?
Coming from a very dysfunctional family, I did not have guidance and no one teaching me the right kind of life--the life I wanted. When I did start to get on my own and find my way off at college, my domineering mother had me come home and change colleges. I was too young and immature to realize why I was doing this. It was not for me, it was for her. That was the beginning of being manipulated and lied to into getting married way too young (nineteen) and to the wrong man. One mistake seems to cause you to make another to try and right a wrong.
There comes a time to slow down and take stock of you and your life and where you are going. Be honest about your family, friends, and what you are living for. Is it what you want, or what they want from you? Are you making them happy, or yourself happy? When you are not pleasing a lot of self-centered, selfish friends and family, they make you feel bad, insufficient, and unworthy of their attention. Think if you really need their attention. Be very particular who you let in your life--your life and future depend on it.
I was always excellent and smart at whatever I did, except to take care of myself and live my life to my satisfaction, not to the satisfaction of others. Had I zeroed in on my wants, likes, talents, and future, my life would have been different. As it was, I have lived a full and exciting life, but full of disappointments toward me and my children, or what could have been if I had sailed the right course. I wrote this to steer anyone and everyone who will read this and take a sober look at their life and where they are going with it.

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Theo a 12 year old boy born to the greatest military mind in French history Matheo LA Laurent was traumatized by the death of his father during an investigation in Spain he contemplated suicide before being stopped by his adopted older brother Jules later he found a book in his father's belongings that contained his contingency plans if all went wrong after reading it he found out he had an uncle who knew everything his father knew so he traveled to find his uncle so he could get revenge for his father.

Yami(Yamikani Kafungu), a 14-year-old kid from Kitwe, Zambia living in the United States for years nowI like writing, anime, history, F1 and European football and one of the reasons I wrote this book is because I was bored out of my mind.

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Hathor Du Bell has always fought to break free from the shadow left by her revered older sister, Aphrodite. It has been two years since Hathor’s debut, and while Aphroditehas married a duke and become a duchess, Hathor has been left with the ton’s most mediocre, boring suitors. With the London season coming to a close, Hathor’s anxieties reach a peak. Will she be the only Du Bell unable to find her perfect match?J. J. McAvoy has written numerous independently published novels that have been translated into six languages and are bestsellers in Turkey, Israel, and France. Her historical romance series featuring the Du Bells includes Aphrodite and the Duke, Verity and the Forbidden Suitor, and Hathor and the Prince. McAvoy is active anddelightful on social media.

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YESTERDAY we could go to our classrooms in school and our parents went to work every day. TODAY some of our parents stay home from work and we are home schooled."

Once again, meet Daisy the cat and her three canine friends, H-Dee, Smokie, and Rocky, as together they face a worldwide pandemic.

The story tackles the Covid-19 pandemic and how everyone's life changed in just one year.

Daisy and Friends What Happened to Yesterday: A Covid-19 Story begins with the definition of the words pandemic and essential workers. The story then explains the changes in our daily lives before and during the pandemic.

"Pandemic: When many people in a country or even all over the world have the same illness."

"Covid-19: A flu-like illness that passes from one person to another person when they have this illness by sneezing and coughing without covering their nose and mouth. Another way people contract Covid-19 is touching something that the affected person has touched. Some people do not know that they are sick with the Covid-19 until a few days after when they show symptoms of the illness. This is the reason why everyone needs to wear their masks in public, sanitize and wash their hands frequently, and stay six feet away from people they do not live with."

Inspiration for the author's books comes from her working over 20 years as a pre-school teacher observing children at work and play.

About the author

Barbara J Meredith retired from Kids Express Learning Center & Daycare, LLC in 2013. She was co-owner, director, and head teacher for 14 years. The animals in the Daisy and Friends Books are my pets. The inspiration for the books came from over 20 years as a pre-school teacher observing children's behaviors.

The following are the book titles of Daisy and Friends Books series:

Daisy and Friends How To Stay Healthy

Daisy and Friends Rocky's New Friend

Daisy and Friends Outside Our Window

Daisy and Friends Waiting for the School Bus

Daisy and Friends What Happen to Yesterday A Covid 19 Story

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1 New York Times award-winning author C.J. Box (an expert on all things Wyoming and the West) and his next Joe Pickett novel (#24 in the series). In this latest, the Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett faces two different kinds of rampaging beasts—one animal, one human. The topic of grizzly bears is always a curiosity to people traveling to Wyoming and the surrounding areas and in the past, but it hasn’t been a real threat to people in the area. However, the population of grizzly bears in the Mountain West has skyrocketed in the Mountain West well beyond their traditional stomping grounds. Every year, there has been an increasing number of fatal and near-fatal encounters with humans. Although some attacks can be attributed to provocation, several recent incidents have been random and terrifying.

In THREE-INCH TEETH, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett faces two different kinds of rampaging beasts—one animal, one human. A rogue grizzly bear has gone on a rampage—killing civilians including the potential fiancée of Joe’s daughter. At the same time, Dallas Cates, who Joe helped lock up years ago, is released from prison. He wants revenge on the people who sent him away including Joe himself. After seeing news reports of grizzly attacks in Twelve Sleep County, Cates has an idea: He can take out his enemies in such a way that no one will suspect him. As Joe is asked to join the state Predator Attack Team to try to find and destroy the bear the bear can’t be trapped or found. As the attacks continue and escalate, will Joe be able to figure out which ones are real and which ones are staged before he’s the target?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: C. J. Box is the author of twenty-four Joe Pickett novels, eight stand-alone novels, and a story collection. He has won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and two Barry awards, as well as the French Prix Calibre .38, the Western Heritage Award for Literature, and two Spur Awards. An avid outdoorsman, Box has hunted, fished, hiked, ridden, and skied throughout Wyoming and the Mountain West. He has been executive producer on shows based on his books, including ABC TV’s Big Sky and Joe Pickett on Paramount+.

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The work of acclaimed and award-winning author Nick Petrie continues to gain esteem. In his 2016 debut, The Drifter, Petrie introduced Peter Ash, a war veteran struggling with PTSD who finds himself in dangerous situations and facing challenges that only a man with his unique skill set can solve. In THE PRICE YOU PAY Peter Ash, a war veteran struggling with PTSD is placed in his most personal predicament yet. He must follow his friend Lewis into a criminal underworld when secrets from the past threaten everything they hold dear.

Peter Ash’s friend Lewis has helped him out of jam more times than he can count and has saved his life more than once. So, he doesn’t hesitate when Lewis asks a favor. Lewis has left his criminal past behind, but a troubling message from a former associate spurs him back into action. He and Peter make a trip to check in, but their visit immediately takes a dark turn when they arrive to find a smoldering cabin and realize that someone has stolen notebooks full of incriminating details of Lewis’s long-ago crimes…Lewis and Peter set off find the notebooks with the help of Peter’s girlfriend June Cassidy but find themselves up against professional criminals in Chicago. The two men may have to tap into the dark sides that they have worked to keep hidden in order to save themselves and their families.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Nick Petrie is the author of seven novels in the Peter Ash series, most recently The Runaway. His debut, The Drifter, won both the ITW Thriller award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel, and was a finalist for the Edgar and the Hammett Awards. A husband and father, he lives in the Milwaukee area.

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Sherri L. Smith, author of the critically acclaimed story Flygirl, and Elizabeth Wein, author of the award-winning book Code Name Verity, join forces in AMERICAN WINGS (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) to shed light on an important and lesser-known chapter in Black aviation history and Black contributions to aviation during the Golden Age of Flight.

In the years between World War I and World War II, aviation fever was everywhere, including among Black Americans. But what hope did a Black person have of learning to fly in a country constricted by prejudice and Jim Crow laws, where some previous Black aviators like Bessie Coleman had to move to France to earn their wings?

AMERICAN WINGS follows a group of determined Black Americans: Cornelius Coffey and Johnny Robinson, skilled auto mechanics; Janet Harmon Bragg, a nurse; and Willa Brown, a teacher and social worker. Together, they created a flying club and built their own airfield on Chicago’s South Side. As the U.S. hurtled toward World War II, they established a school to train new pilots, teaching both Black and white students together and proving, in a time when the U.S. military was still segregated, that successful integration was possible.

Complete with black-and-white photographs throughout, AMERICAN WINGS brings to light a hidden history of pioneering Black men and women who, with grit and resilience, battled powerful odds for an equal share of the sky.

ABOUT THE ELIZABETH WEIN: Elizabeth Wein (LEFT) is a recreational pilot and the owner of about a thousand maps. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Code Name Verity, as well as the novels Rose Under Fire; Black Dove, White Raven; The Pearl Thief; and The Enigma Game; as well as the nonfiction book A Thousand Sisters: The Heroic Airwomen of the Soviet Union in World War II. Visit her online at elizabethwein.com.

ABOUT THE SHERRI L SMITH: Sherri L. Smith (RIGHT) is the author of several novels for young adults, including the critically acclaimed The Blossom and the Firefly, Flygirl, Orleans, and Pasadena, as well as the middle-grade novel The Toymaker’s Apprentice. Visit her online at sherrilsmith.com

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This book is designed to help readers feel connected to a deeper source of light, knowledge, and peace. It gives readers a chance to feel, think, and ponder the trials of everyday life and it gives guidance on how to manage them a little better without feeling hopeless or alone.

Kimberleigh was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She participated in the EBR Magnet program throughout her academic career. Lee High School is where she found my passion for poetry and the Army National Guard. In her college years she chose to attend Louisiana State University. There she majored in Sociology with a minor in Spanish. Prior to being accepted into LSU and post to her army training; She served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Guayaquil, Ecuador. On her mission is where she gained cultural enthusiasm and the desire to be more culturally diverse. Her journey has taken her many places. Ultimately, it shaped her into the well-rounded woman that she is today— and for that she is thankful.

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Sprinkle is a poem of poems, just like how a sprinkle is full of unique sprinkles. Here are new discoveries about what is Existence and Spirit and Awareness, preciously and slowly made understandable without resorting to belief or guessing. This does not make religion and science obsolete because they have unique purposes and provide many cool tools. Sprinkle helps clarify how and why their tools and toys work. Philosophers and others have long postulated that our real practical underlying truths are utterly simple. Oh yes! We are always close to knowing these new discoveries but strange as it seems have been unable to look directly and fully. Sprinkle warmly and playfully presents this knowledge full, direct and making sense while on a tour of our serious and goofy world. We are certainly responsible for ourselves but we don’t have to feel bad about our ignorance. We can learn and become happier.

How did I come to Know? At four, I stopped asking others ‘why’ because their answers seemed meant to shut me up moreso than to lovingly educate. Instead, seeking any truths, I asked myself something silly and intuitive, ‘Why why?’ Immediately and shockingly I transcended. I did not have an answer but it felt promising. Pleasant enough was being in freeflow Know, my first meditation ecstasy! Then at 22, while studying Native American philosophy, I just had to go on a journey. Just had to! But I could not leave and I had stopped doing drugs years earlier. So I did it unsufferingly from my easy chair, closed my eyes, and meditated on what could be my spirit guide. I asked and let it go and went into freeflow Know and soon met White Otter. According to the books, this translated as playful wisdom. I laughed because I had no clue what it meant. But I found out in a lifetime of intense study and play in all philosophies and sciences and lots of looking. Fifty years later, I have wonderful playful wisdom to share with you. You do not need a background in philosophy or anything else, just honest willingness to look. This is just like your original adventure of coming to Know as a fresh Love One. I have made it easy and exciting to experience, and oh so fun!

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From military heroism to infamy, Benedict Arnold’s name is one that has become synonymous with treasonous behavior since the beginnings of America. GOD SAVE BENEDICT ARNOLD: The True Story of America’s Most Hated Man by Jack Kelly (St. Martin’s Press) is an exploration of the triumphs, flaws, and motivations of a figure who left an indelible mark on American history. In the book, Kelly does not exonerate Benedict Arnold for treason, but he demonstrates how Arnold was essential to victory before becoming a traitor. He offers a reevaluation of Arnold’s career, shows his string of heroic achievements, and also speculates on what may have prompted Arnold’s betrayal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: JACK KELLY is an award-winning author and historian. His books include Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America’s Independence, which received the DAR History Medal. He is also the author of Valcour, The Edge of Anarchy, Heaven’s Ditch, and Gunpowder. He has published five novels, and is a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in Nonfiction Literature. Kelly has appeared on TheHistory Channel, National Public Radio, and C-Span. He lives in New York's Hudson Valley. www.jackkellybooks.com

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"YESTERDAY we could go to our classrooms in school and our parents went to work every day. TODAY some of our parents stay home from work and we are home schooled."

Once again, meet Daisy the cat and her three canine friends, H-Dee, Smokie, and Rocky, as together they face a worldwide pandemic.

The story tackles the Covid-19 pandemic and how everyone's life changed in just one year.

Daisy and Friends What Happened to Yesterday: A Covid-19 Story begins with the definition of the words pandemic and essential workers. The story then explains the changes in our daily lives before and during the pandemic.

"Pandemic: When many people in a country or even all over the world have the same illness."

"Covid-19: A flu-like illness that passes from one person to another person when they have this illness by sneezing and coughing without covering their nose and mouth. Another way people contract Covid-19 is touching something that the affected person has touched. Some people do not know that they are sick with the Covid-19 until a few days after when they show symptoms of the illness. This is the reason why everyone needs to wear their masks in public, sanitize and wash their hands frequently, and stay six feet away from people they do not live with."

Inspiration for the author's books comes from her working over 20 years as a pre-school teacher observing children at work and play.

About the author

Barbara J Meredith retired from Kids Express Learning Center & Daycare, LLC in 2013. She was co-owner, director, and head teacher for 14 years. The animals in the Daisy and Friends Books are my pets. The inspiration for the books came from over 20 years as a pre-school teacher observing children's behaviors.

The following are the book titles of Daisy and Friends Books series:

Daisy and Friends How To Stay Healthy

Daisy and Friends Rocky's New Friend

Daisy and Friends Outside Our Window

Daisy and Friends Waiting for the School Bus

Daisy and Friends What Happen to Yesterday A Covid 19 Story

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New York Times bestselling author and former special forces officer Brad Taylor is back with a propulsive and topical edge-of-your-seat thriller featuring Pike Logan as he goes head-to-head with Putin’s henchmen. To finally end the war between their nations, a rogue Ukranian band of partisans known as the Wolves teams up with members of Russia’s military intelligence to assassinate Vladimir Putin. But Putin is aware of the traitors in his midst and assigns the loyal commander of the Russian national guard to root them out. It’s a mission Victor Petrov is expected to undertake after he prevents Sweden from joining NATO—by assassinating a deputy minister of foreign affairs. After receiving intelligence about the threat in Sweden, the U.S. sends Pike Logan to identify Victor’s target—only for him to get caught in the crossfire between Putin’s agents and the Wolves. When the smoke clears, Pike makes no effort to stop the Wolves on their ultimate mission, believing it just, until he discovers that their operation has unimaginable consequences. For Putin is preparing a devastating endgame: activating the Dead Man’s Hand nuclear response that will launch Russia’s missiles in the event of his death.

Author Bio

Brad Taylor, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), is a twenty-one-year veteran of the U.S. Army Infantry and Special Forces, includ­ing eight years with Delta Force. Taylor retired in 2010 after serving more than two decades and participating in Oper­ation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has written seventeen New York Times bestsellers and is a security consultant on asymmetric threats for various agencies. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife and two daughters.
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Award-winning author Jessie Kanzer's UNLOCKING YOUR INNER ZELENSKY: Lessons We Can All Learn from an Unexpected Leader , draws on Volodymyr Zelensky's words and actions to show how to improve how we lead, and how we live. Early praise and more info are below, and a list of possible interview/discussion questions is attached.

Jessie Kanzer, a half-Ukrainian child of the USSR who had a small part in Zelensky’s first major film, sees Zelensky as "a spiritual leader for our times." As a native Russian speaker (like Zelensky himself), she picks up on the deep philosophical ramifications behind his words. Rich and yet easy-to-read, the life lessons in UNLOCKING YOUR INNER ZELENSKY are accessible and wise, and are more about starting where you are than about war.

Each chapter begins with a key piece of wisdom drawn from Zelensky's words, along with advice for implementing it in our own life. Readers will see how Zelensky handled his much-criticized background as a comedian when he came into elective office. Topics include:

  • Speak Truth to Everything
  • Unstick Yourself
  • Decide with Courage
  • Use Your Energy Wisely

Tips include spreading graciousness, and acknowledging that it's not "all about you" to erase differences in backgrounds.

Kanzer is a self-described "spiritual nerd" who followed Zelensky long before he stood before a blue and yellow backdrop on the national stage. She writes, "What is so incredible about our man Volodymyr is that his belief in himself stems not from seeing himself as special, but from seeing himself as ordinary and from knowing there is great power in this ordinariness."

About the AuthorJESSIE ASYA KANZER is the award-winning author of Don’t Just Sit There, DO NOTHING and Unlocking Your Inner Zelensky. She was born in the Soviet Union and left at age eight. A former reporter and actress, she once found herself on the set of a Zelensky film and has been following his story ever since. Kanzer’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, and many other publications. She's been interviewed on podcasts and TV programs across the country. She lives with her husband, two daughters, and two cats in Dobbs Ferry, NY.

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The hugely successful psychological thriller and page turner in REEF ROAD by Deborah Goodrich Royce isout in paperback (with some additional content). Deborah is Also the author of Ruby Falls and Finding Mrs. Ford, Goodrich Royce is a former film and television actress, best remembered by soap opera fans for her role of Silver Kane, sister of the legendary Erica Kane on All My Children.

Reef Road explores a decades old unsolved murder of a young girl. Inspired by a real-life crime that affected her family, the novel begins with an unspeakable murder in 1948 Pittsburgh and culminates with a man’s severed hand washed up on the shore of Palm Beach in 2020.

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In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously proclaimed freedom of speech as the first of his “fourfreedoms,” but his behavior, including confining over 120,000 American citizens in concentration camps,often belied such flowery prose.

In the new book The New Deal’s War on the Bill ofRights: The Untold Story of FDR’s Concentration Camps, Censorship, and Mass Surveillance, IndependentInstitute Sr. Fellow David T. Beito exposes FDR’s dictatorial endeavors of spying on U.S. citizens, incarceratingminorities, censoring critics and the press, and essentially annihilating the Bill of Rights.

Author Biography: David T. Beito is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor Emeritus at theUniversity of Alabama. He received his Ph.D. in history at the University of Wisconsin, and he is the recipient of the Ellis Hawley Prize. Beito is also the author of T.R.M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, and Civil Rights Pioneer (with Linda Royster Beito). He is the former President of the Alabama Scholars Association and Chair of the Alabama State Advisory Committee of the UnitedStates Commission on Civil Rights.

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Elvis and the Colonel: An Insider’s Look at the Most Legendary Partnership in Show Business by Greg McDonald and Marshall Terrill is a fresh biography of entertainment manager Colonel Tom Parker, a largely misunderstood figure in the life of Elvis Presley. McDonald,who worked under Parker for years, presents a contrarian and corrective point of view on a trailblazing man. The heart of the book is the long, strong, warm, and complex relationship between two iconic men.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Greg McDonald is an entertainmentproducer who got his start in show business with Colonel Tom Parker, who knew him when he was a teenager. He managed Ricky Nelson for seventeen years, ranSonny Bono’s mayoral and congressional campaigns, and was president of Transcontinental Records (Backstreet Boys, NSYNC and O’Town). He’s also produced several feature films, television series (Making the Band) andlarge-scale concerts. McDonald manages Colonel Tom Parker’s show business assets, including his name, likeness and image. He resides in the Palm Springs area with his wife Sherry.
Marshall Terrill is a veteran film, sports and music writer and the author of more than 30 books. They include best-selling biographies of Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Billy Graham, and Pete Maravich. His book, Steve McQueen: The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon,is in development to be made into a feature film. He also executive produced the 2017 feature film documentary, Steve McQueen: American Icon andthe 2022 documentary Johnny Cash: The Redemption ofan American Icon. He resides in Tempe, Arizona, with his wife Zoe.

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What causes schizophrenia? Is it a genetic glitch or are environmental factors at play? A combination of the two? Whatever the reason, what medication and course ofaction will give the patient the best chance at a normal life?

Steven Lesk, MD, has been a practicing,board certified psychiatrist for almost four decades, treating thousands of adult patients while researching, writing articles, and mentoring students. He served as Chairman of the Department of Inpatient Psychiatric Services at the Brooklyn VA Hospital and was assistant professor at the hospital’s affiliated medical school. He lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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The Founding Fathers are often revered as American saints. A Republic of Scoundrels (Pegasus Books), edited by David Head and Timothy Hemmis, chronicles the Founders who were schemers and opportunists, vying for their own interests ahead of the nation’s. We now have a clear-eyed understanding of Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton; even so, they are often considered American saints, revered for their wisdom and self-sacrificing service to the nation. However, within the Founding generation lurked many unscrupulous figures—men who violated the era’s expectation of public virtue and advanced their own interests at the expense of others.About the Editors:

A history professor at the University of Central Florida, David Head (editor) is the author of A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution. His books have been supported by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, a Gilder Lehrman Fellowship at the New-York Historical Society, and a Lord Baltimore Fellowship. Head’s academic work has been honored with the John Gardner Maritime Research Award; the Marion Brewington Prize for Chesapeake Maritime History; and the Hardin Craig Award for Excellence. David lives in Orlando, Florida.

Timothy Hemmis (editor) is an assistant professor of history at Texas A&M UniversityCentral Texas. He graduated from The University of Southern Mississippi. Timothy's teaching focuses on Early American History and American Military History. He serves as the Regional Coordinator for the Southwest for the Society for Military History and is the History Book Review editor for The Presidential Studies Quarterly. Hemmis has written opinion pieces for the Washington Post and has delivered speeches at the Army and Navy Club in Washington, DC, the War and Society Working Group at Texas A&M University College Station, and the US Army III Corps Senior Command at Fort Hood.

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A Vision Of Inspiration is a book about Love, Abuse, Mental Health, and Faith. Going through life hating yourself and wanting to die, because you could never be enough, or perfect for humans that claim they love you. The same humans that claim they love you are the same ones that betray you the most.

Honesty, Loyalty, and Real Love are extremely hard to find these days. This book will prove the obstacles and tribulations I've had to go through to find it. This book is controversial and will have you think outside of the box. You will be set free! Our minds keep us enslaved to Humanity and I am a messenger sent to lead and help you out of Bondage!

A Mother, A Philanthropist, Mentor, Owner of Loud house Incorporation and Non Profit Organization, and an Extraordinaire. A woman that has been beaten in all prospects in life from every angle, that has found true Love, regained herself and self Love. All my life I've been beaten and almost murdered on multiple occasions. When a woman speaks from her heart and mind she's too often considered garbage and she's treated less than a pesky bug. I broke the generational chains and curses that were put upon my family bloodline. I am very strong willed and independent and I never give up!For more info on the book click HERE

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From bestselling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist H.W. Brands, a revelatory history of the shocking emergence of vicious political division at the birth of the United States.

Author Bio: H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written more than a dozen biographies and histories,including The General vs. the President, a New York Times bestseller, and Our First Civil War, his most recent book. Two of his biographies, The First American and Traitor to His Class, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.

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In The Last Outlaws: The Desperate Final Days of the Dalton Gang , New York Times bestsellingauthor Tom Clavin tells, for the first time, the full story of the infamous Coffeyville bank heist, perpetrated in 1892 by the Dalton Gang. Clavin, known and admired for his immersive narrative style, traces the lives of the Daltons and their accomplices to illuminate, in riveting detail, another fascinating and violent moment in early American history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TOM CLAVIN is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and has worked as a newspaper editor, magazine writer, TV and radio commentator, and a reporter for The New York Times. He has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Marine Corps HeritageFoundation, and National Newspaper Association. His books include the bestselling Frontier Lawmen trilogy—Wild Bill, Dodge City, and Tombstone—and Blood and Treasure with Bob Drury. He lives in Sag Harbor, NY.
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The tomato gets no respect. Never has. Lost in the dustbin of history for centuries, accused of being vile and poisonous, subjected to being picked hard-green and gassed, even used as a projectile, the poor tomato has become the avatar for our disaffection with industrial foods — while becoming the most popular vegetable in America (and, in fact, the world). Each summer, tomato festivals crop up across the country; the Heinz ketchup bottle, instantly recognizable, has earned a spot in the Smithsonian; and now the tomato is redefining the very nature of farming, moving from fields into climate-controlled mega-greenhouses the size of New England villages.

About the author

William Alexander is the author of the national bestseller, "The $64 Tomato," as well as "52 Loaves: A Half-Baked Adventure," his hilarious and moving account of a year spent striving to bake the perfect loaf of bread; "Flirting With French," about his often riotous attempt to fulfill a life-dream of learning French, and most recently, "Ten Tomatoes That Changed the World," a whirlwind tour of the history of the humble tomato.

The New York Times Style Magazine says about Alexander, "His timing and his delivery are flawless," while Counterpunch has called him "one of the funniest writers in America." He has appeared on NPR's Morning (and Weekend) Edition, at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC, and was a 2006 Quill Book Awards finalist. Alexander has also contributed over a dozen essays to the New York Times opinion pages, where he has opined on such issues as the Christmas tree threatening his living room, Martha Stewart, and the difficulties of being organic.

Before turning to writing full-time, Bill spent 37 years as a director of information technology at a psychiatric research institution, persisting in the belief that he is a researcher, not a researchee.

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From New York Times-bestselling author James Lee Burke comes a novel set in Civil War-era Louisiana as the South transforms and a brilliant cast of characters – enslaved and free women, plantation gentry, and battle-weary Confederate and Union soldiers – are caught in the maelstrom.

About the author

James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. He’s authored thirty-seven novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.

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Does democracy die in darkness, as the saying suggests? This book reveals that modern democracy was born in secrecy, despite the widespread conviction that transparency was its very essence.In the years preceding the American and French revolutions, state secrecy came to be seen as despotic—an instrument of monarchy. But as revolutionaries sought to fashion representative government, they faced a dilemma. In a context where gaining public trust seemed to demand transparency, was secrecy ever legitimate? Whether in Philadelphia or Paris, establishing popular sovereignty required navigating between an ideological imperative to eradicate secrets from the state and a practical need to limit transparency in government. Unveiling modern democracy’s surprisingly shadowy origins, Carter reshapes our understanding of how government by and for the people emerged during the Age of Revolutions.

KATLYN MARIE CARTER is assistant professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. She lives in South Bend, IN.

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Lynne Golodner writes emotional novels with compelling Jewish characters who are determined to fill their lives with passion, purpose and love. Her first novel, Woman of Valor, joins a body of work that includes two poetry collections and six nonfiction books, including Hide and Seek: Jewish Women and Hair Covering and The Flavors of Faith: Holy Breads. Lynne is a writing coach, marketing entrepreneur and host of the Make Meaning Podcast, and her creative nonfiction has been published around the world. With a BA from University of Michigan and anMFA from Goddard College, Lynne is the mother of four and lives in Huntington Woods, Michigan, with her husband, Dan.

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Searching for love leads Andrew Sharpai down a path of rejection and haunting memories. When he encounters LaRae DuFont, however, Vegas' famous show dancer, it is love at first sight. She tells him a story in which Mary Magdalene thought Jesus was a gardener teaching Andrew that everything is not as it seems. A tragic twist of fate alters the plans of the lovers. Grievous questions lead Andrew down a drunken path to an Idaho town, where he is far from the Vegas crowd.

In Pocatello, he meets the infamous witch, Iris Winkle, her daughter, Lily, and their magical raven, Elijah Corbeau. Their mysterious and unconventional ways bewitch Andrew into entering their eccentric lifestyle, which mingles with the "other" world.

Iris' ex-husband, a cruel Satanist witch, has cast a wicked spell on Iris and Lily. Andrew finds himself trapped within it. The three victims battle with the hauntings as they see the spirit of things unfold before them. But will this be enough to save them from the evil spell?

About the Author

Jerome Peterson was born in Rockford, Illinois. While listening to music in high school, he began writing poetry. From there, he added songwriting, short stories, articles, and novels. Jerome also likes to sketch. He is the author of Leaving Family Behind, Thumb Flagging, and The Mind is Sorry The Body Suffers. Jerome has been married for forty-three years. He has two daughters, five grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Jerome lives with his wife, Carolyn, and their dog, Freddie, in Sparks, Nevada.

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“Shadows in the Sunset” consists of three novellas, the first being the story that gives the book its title, a story of a Summer lost and never forgotten. It follows a group of youths adventuring through the terrain of Big Sur. Moments are made and the truth of everything is felt through each person’s expression.

The second novella is “Underland (The Lost Children),” which follows the simple story of James and Summer, two “fools” just visiting the country fair.

Lastly, “A House with No Progression,” which is about an artist named Ray and his girlfriend, Annabel Lee. They live together in isolation and have formed their own world within those walls. We begin to see signs of malice and realize that distinguishing reality from fiction is a difficult process for the artist.

Jonathan Ray Hernandez Farris is an American artist of Colombian and Mexican descent. The passion for storytelling came from his mother, who always told him stories, and introduced him to a variety of films at a young age. The three novellas were written up and down the west coast, ranging from the forests of Oregon, to the beaches of Big Sur, and to his home in the San Fernando Valley. The influence for each story came from real life experiences, as well as the abstract thoughts that followed each one. Though fiction, the reality of each story breathes deeper truths concerning art, youthful pursuits, and freedoms in life.You can purchase the book HERE

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In HITCHCOCK’S BLONDES, bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer offers an intimate journey into the lives of eight legendary actresses whose stories helped chart the course of the troubled, talented director’s career—from his early days in the British film industry, to his triumphant American debut, to his Hollywood heyday and beyond. Through the stories of June Howard-Tripp, Madeleine Carroll, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and Tippi Hedren—who starred in fourteen of Hitchcock’s most notable films and who bore the brunt of his fondness and sometimes fixation—we can finally start to see the enigmatic man himself. After all, “his” blondes (as he thought of them) knew the truths of his art, his obsessions and desires, as well as anyone. As with his previous book, Capote’s Women, Leamer's empathetic retelling acknowledges their complex stories and allows their biographies to take priority.

Alfred Hitchcock was fixated—not just on the dark, twisty stories that became his hallmark, but also by the blond actresses who starred in many of his iconic movies. The director of “North by Northwest,” “Rear Window,” and other classic films didn’t much care if they wore wigs, got their hair coloring out of a bottle, or were the rarest human specimen—a natural blonde—as long as they shone with a golden veneer on camera. The lengths he went to in order to showcase (and often manipulate) these women would become the stuff of movie legend. But the women themselves have rarely been at the center of the story, until now. Biographies have been written about Alfred Hitchcock, but never has there been an account of his life and work told through the lens of the actresses who helped launch his career.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Laurence Leamer is a leading biographer of the rich and powerful, including Capote’s Women, Madness Under the Royal Palms and The Kennedy Women, among many other books. Leamer’s last book, 2021’s CAPOTE’S WOMEN was an acclaimed national bestseller and will serve as the source material for the second season of Feud, Ryan Murphy’s F/X anthology series. It has a jaw-dropping cast of stars attached including Naomi Watts, Molly Ringwald, Diane Lane, Demi Moore, and Chloe Sevigny, with Gus Van Sant directing. He lives in Washington, D.C., and Palm Beach, Florida.

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When I rest my eyes and fall into that place of disconnection from my surroundings, I slide over into a land of creative, colorful narrations. My dreams are often so eventful that I wake up exhausted. The events in this book are real in my dreaming mind. This volume includes dreams and notes from 1997 through 2006. I have been journaling my dreams for decades and decided there must be a reason, therefore I am sharing. These episodes of varying lengths are neither fiction nor nonfiction, fantasy nor reality, just dreams. Sometimes they are funny and at times, they reflect the job I am working or events that have actually happened in my real life. I have also included some diary notes that fit between some of the dreams that may offer context. I have rarely tried to interpret my dreams, mainly because I am hesitant to connect with the power or prophecy or clairvoyance. There is space for interpretation and space for response to prompts about different dream scenarios and triggers. I encourage everyone to read, imagine, and travel to familiar or strange places in my mind and your own.

Dr. Leggie [Leh ‘jee] Boone is a Forensic Analyst, Author, and Educator. Leggie primarily works as an analyst, examining evidence for fingerprints, shoe prints, and tire tracks for comparison and identification. She has spent over 30 years in the forensic science field as a Crime Scene Investigator, Volunteer Autopsy Technician, Educator, and Analyst. Dr. Boone’s main fields of interest are vicarious traumatization, organizational support and civilian relations, implicit bias in crime scene attendance, personal impact of law enforcement suicide, and active dreaming. Having an array of tragedies in her mental slide show of crime scenes, Leggie adopted her methods of decompression to include writing songs and crime scene poetry, singing, and journaling graphically detailed dreams.

Dr. Boone has collaborated on the publishing of the forensic textbook and virtual component, So You Want to Be a CSI, with two other former CSIs, Kendall Hunt Publishing, and Victory XR. She has also coauthored and published Fox Tails: Short, Short Stories Written While Puppysitting, she has multiple poems and song lyrics published in books and magazines. Someday, My Prints Will Come is the most recent publication she has produced, functioning as a learning tool and activity book focused on the study of fingerprints.

Dr. Boone has taught as an adjunct professor with Keiser University in Florida, in the Crime Scene Technology program and as contributing faculty with Walden University, in the Forensic Psychology programs. She has also been an invited speaker in many international conferences, including the Global Science Guild, Worldwide Association of Women Forensic Experts, and the Caribbean Association of Forensic Sciences, and she is a Senior Adjunct Faculty member for the Sherlock Institute of Forensic Sciences, India.

Through it all, she still dreams vividly, in the midst of producing volumes for interpretation, enlightenment or entertainment. Dr. Boone is inspired by the constant support of her mother and daughter, both named Leggie, and she is driven by her faith to be an author, a leader, and an agent of social change.

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Visited by the spirit world, a Hopi woman, an Aborigine man, and a Rabbi are told the earth will soon undergo worldwide desolation. They are divinely united to reveal the message to all humans that live upon Mother Earth. It all begins with a thermonuclear war between India and China over greed, which starts the cataclysmic events that alter the entire planet. They were told that man's carelessness with his scientific technology will cause a cascade of events that will literally change the face of Mother Earth. Will Sarah, Yirawala, and Rabbi Raboy be able to warn all the humans in time to prepare themselves for these cataclysmic events? This book is part one of the Desolation trilogy. Mother Earth purifies herself and completes her rebirth in books two and three.

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The inside story of how one president forever altered the most powerful legal institution in the country, with consequences that endure today.

By the summer of 1941, in the ninth year of hispresidency, Franklin Roosevelt had molded his Court. He had appointed seven of the nine justices—the most by any president except George Washington—and handpicked the chief justice.

But the wartime Roosevelt Court had two faces.One was bold and progressive, the other supine and abject, cowed by the charisma of the revered president.

The Court at War explores this pivotal period. It provides a cast of unforgettable characters in the justices—from the mercurial, Vienna-born intellectual Felix Frankfurter to the Alabama populist Hugo Black; from the western prodigy William O. Douglas, FDR’s initial pick to be his running mate in 1944, to Roosevelt’s former attorney general and Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson.

The justices’ shameless capitulation and unwillingness to cross their beloved president highlight the dangers of anunseemly closeness between Supreme Court justices and their political patrons.But the FDR Court’s finest moments also provided a robust defense of individual rights, rights the current Court has put in jeopardy. Sloan’s intimate portraitis a vivid, instructive tale for modern times.Cliff Sloan is a professor of constitutional law andcriminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the Supreme Court seven times. He has served in all three branches of the federal Government, including as Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure, and is the author of The Great Decision: Jefferson, Adams, Marshall, and the Battle for the Supreme Court. His commentary on the Supreme Court and legal issues has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, and other publications, and on television and radio networks.

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“The Master Storyteller” David Baldacci is back with the second book in his 6:20 Man series: The Edge.

The 6:20 Man series is praised: "Corporate conspiracies, corruption, and murder—all come together in one of thriller fans’ most anticipated books of the summer . . . Baldacci’s experience in this genre truly shines as he builds complex layers of riveting twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat!"―Reader's Digest

"A complex, high-powered thriller that will keep the reader guessing . . . This is a winner from a pro."—Kirkus

David Baldacci is a global #1 bestselling author, and one of the world’s favorite storytellers. His books are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with 150 million copies sold worldwide. His works have been adapted for both feature film and television. David Baldacci is also the cofounder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, he invites you to visit him at DavidBaldacci.com and his foundation at WishYouWellFoundation.org⁠.

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You have to do it everyday and I know it will be hard, some days it may feel even impossible. But you have to believe in your self and I promise you'll never experience setbacks from the Hands of believing in yourself Just get it done.

John Robert Hartzell was born in Pasco County Florida, and spent most of his childhood growing up in northeast Ohio.

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Boston is today one of the world’s greatestcities, first in higher education, hospitals, life sciencecompanies, and sports teams. It was the home of the Great Puritan Migration, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the first civil rights movement, the abolition movement, and the women’s rights movement. But the city that gave us the first use of ether as anesthesia, the telephone, technicolor film, and themutual fund—the city where Martin Luther King Jr. andCoretta Scott founded their world-changing partnership—was also the hub of the anti-immigration movement, the divisive busing era, and decades of self-inflicted decay.

Boston has the most important history of any Americancity. Yet its history has never been given a comprehensive treatment until now. In A History of Boston, Dan Dain takes us from the arrivalof First Peoples up to the election of Boston’s firstwoman and person of color as mayor. Along the way he explores the policies and practices that took Boston from its highest heights to its lowest lows and back again, and examines the central role that density, diversity, and good urban design play in the success of cities likeBoston.

Daniel Dain was born in Boston and grew up in Newton,Massachusetts. A graduate of Vassar College and University of Michigan Law School, he’s spent his professional career as a lawyer in Boston, working with commercial property owners and developers on issues related to their use and development of real estate. Dan writes and lectures widely on land use law and urbanplanning and is the founder and president of the law firm Dain Torpy, where he chairs the firm’s real estate litigation practice. He is the manager of an equity fund that invests in independent local restaurants, a co-founder and treasurer of the Needham Land Trust, and is a board member of the business advocacy groups NAIOP of Massachusetts and A Better City, as well as the Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture. Dan also chairs the arts company White Snake Projects and the Massachusetts Real Estate Bar Association’s LitigationSection. He lives in Needham, Massachusetts with his wife and two kids.

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It’s 1923 in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where a risky romance between a mistreated young woman and a boxer owned by the mob motivates self-discovery, loyalty toward passions, and a life-threatening struggle for freedom.

A mundane life is far from Angelina’s only suffrage. Pitying the monster that once loved her as a daughter is just as much a captivity as his fist to her face. Fear locks her door; daring to dream is her key.

For fisherman Vincent, unsought ties with the world of organized crime have him boxing in a speakeasy notorious for its gambling on the fights. To maintain the security and success of his father’s longtime fishing business and the well-being of everyone close to him, Vincent must remain enslaved to a ruthless and powerful mob leader.

Face to the Wind is a tender romance, a “jazz-age” journey that unfolds through the eyes of two young lovers with a timeless determination to be together.

Prior to settling in Slocomb, Alabama, Jennifer Pauline Bedsole spent most of her life where she grew up in New England, wishing the comfort of summer was longer-lasting and the cold of winter less bitter. Her love for the South was recognized and undeniable in 1997 when she spent a year at the University of Tampa where she majored in creative writing. A change of fate put Jennifer’s collegiate journey on hold and led her back up to Massachusetts where she continued her education at Northern Essex Community College, never abandoning her passion for writing. Her romance with the South was far from over and in 2018, following her husband’s retirement from the military, Jennifer’s dream to return close to the Gulf Coast was fulfilled. With her husband and five children, on 49 acres of flourishing farmland, she finds peace and inspiration in the warmth of southern life.

Currently an English major at Troy University, Jennifer is dedicated to her family, farm life, and dreams of finally obtaining her Bachelor of Science degree in English. Finding success in writing and editing has been a lifelong goal that she is determined to bring to fruition. Her passion for writing is fueled by her desire to inspire and encourage others to experience phenomenal and infinite depths of emotion.

Several of Jennifer’s poems were published in Troy University’s literary journal, the Rubicon, in 2021 and 2022. Other collections in which her poetry has been published include Montage of Life, The Colors of Life, and VoicesNet Anthology. The completion of her first novel Face to the Wind is one of her most significant creative accomplishments, and she is motivated to continue writing fiction. This historical romance novel, featuring dual protagonists, captures the essence of the “roaring twenties” amidst the cobbled roads of Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

The most thrilling and fulfilling part of writing fiction, Jennifer believes, is creating a world that seems so real that it is hard to put the pen down and say goodnight to the characters. She endeavors to bring her stories to life by rousing the senses and introducing characters that become impossible to forget.

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A captivating chronicle of the pivotal decade in American sports, when the games invaded prime time, and sports moved from the margins to the mainstream of American culture.Every decade brings change, but as Michael MacCambridge chronicles in THE BIG TIME, no decade in American sports history featured such convulsive cultural shifts as the 1970s. So many things happened during the decade—the move of sports into prime-time television, the beginning of athletes’ gaining a sense of autonomy for their own careers, integration becoming—at least within sports—more of the rule than the exception, and the social revolution that brought females more decisively into sports, as athletes, coaches, executives, and spectators. More than politicians, musicians or actors, the decade in America was defined by its most exemplary athletes. The sweeping changes in the decade could be seen in the collective experience of Billie Jean King and Muhammad Ali, Henry Aaron and Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Joe Greene, Jack Nicklaus and Chris Evert, among others, who redefined the role of athletes and athletics in American culture. The Seventies witnessed the emergence of spectator sports as an ever-expanding mainstream phenomenon, as well as dramatic changes in the way athletes were paid, portrayed, and packaged. In tracing the epic narrative of how American sports was transformed in the Seventies, a larger story emerges: of how America itself changed, and how spectator sports moved decisively on a trajectory toward what it has become today, the last truly “big tent” in American culture.

About The Author:

Michael MacCambridge is an author, journalist and TV commentator, whose books have included the acclaimed America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured A Nation and Chuck Noll: His Life’s Work. For eight years a columnist and critic at the Austin American-Statesman, MacCambridge was later a contributor to A New Literary History of America, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, and GQ. The father of two children, Miles and Ella, he lives in Austin.

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More than 117 years ago, the largest city in the Western U.S. shook, crumbled, burned, and was completely devastated in an incomprehensible show of force by nature. With almost the entire city still asleep, the next 48 seconds sent shockwaves through the city, buckling streets, shattering water mains, collapsing buildings on slumbering residents, and crushing hundreds to death while trapping many alive. Relying on archival sources and hundreds of previously unpublished letters and photographs, Matthew J. Davenport weaves a harrowing tale of the fateful day in his new book, THE LONGEST MINUTE: The Great San Francisco Earth Quake and Fire .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew J. Davenport’s first book, First Over There, a finalist for the 2015 Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History, was acclaimed as “a brilliant work for every library” by Library Journal and was heralded by Pulitzer Prize winning historian James McPherson as “military history at its best.” He has been a contributing writer for The Wall Street Journal book review and Salon.com, and is a member of the Authors Guild. A native of Missouri and a former prosecutor, he practices law in North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and two sons.

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Many know Hubert Humphrey as a man whose public life ended in disgrace—as the man who lost his bearings during the Vietnam War and then lost the presidency to Richard Nixon. But decades before the Vietnam War or his presidential run, Humphrey was known as a trailblazing statesman who electrified the nation through an impassioned speech in support of civil rights at the July 1948 Democratic National Convention. Urging the delegates to “get out of the shadow of state’s rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights,” Humphrey—then a 37-yearold mayor of Minneapolis—put everything on the line, rhetorically and politically, to move the party and the country forward. To the surprise of many, including Humphrey himself, the democratic delegates adopted a meaningful civil rights plank. With no choice but to run on it, President Truman desegregated the armed forces and soon thereafter won reelection against the frontrunner Thomas Dewey, a victory due in part to an unprecedented surge of Black voters. Published on the 75th anniversary of that pivotal 1948 speech, Samuel G. Freedman’s July 2023 Into the Bright Sunshine examines the politician’s early career, when his efforts to promote racial justice not only transformed the Democratic Party but the nation as well. Freedman explores the journey of Humphrey’s life from a remote, all-white hamlet in South Dakota to the mayoralty of Minneapolis as he tackles its notorious racism and anti-Semitism to his role as a national champion of multiracial democracy. His allies in that struggle include a Black newspaper publisher, a Jewish attorney, and a professor who had fled Nazi Germany. And his adversaries are the white supremacists, Christian Nationalists, and America Firsters of mid-century America—one of whom tries to assassinate him.Celebrating one of the overlooked landmarks of civil rights history, Freedman illuminates the early life and enduring legacy of the man who helped bring it about.Samuel G. Freedman is an award-winning author, journalist, and educator. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has won the National Jewish Book Award and the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Award. His columns for the New York Times about education and religion have received national prizes. He is a professor at Columbia University, and has been named the nation’s Outstanding Journalism Educator by the Society of Professional Journalists.

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From acclaimed historian Elizabeth Varon comes a true story of courage and controversy – a new exploration of one of the most complex figures from American Civil War history. LONGSTREET, delves deep into the life and legacy of General James Longstreet.

With LONGSTREET, Varon – the recipient of the 2020 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for her book Armies of Deliverance – provides a meticulously researched biography that unveils the lesser-known aspects of General Longstreet's story, from his early days as a protégé of General Robert E. Lee to his pivotal role in the Battle of Gettysburg and beyond.

However, what truly sets this work apart is its focus on Longstreet's divergent path from traditional Southern postwar ideology. After the South was defeated, Longstreet moved to New Orleans. There he supported Black voting and joined the newly elected, integrated postwar government in Louisiana. When white supremacists took up arms to oust that government, Longstreet, leading the interracial state militia, battled against former Confederates. White Southerners branded him a race traitor and blamed him retroactively for the South’s defeat in the Civil War. His continued defiance ignited a firestorm.

In this age of racial reckoning, it is high time that Longstreet be rediscovered. Varon's careful research and engaging storytelling provides readers with a fresh understanding of a man who dared to challenge the norms of his time, demonstrating that Longstreet’s controversial choices have enduring relevance for our modern debates.

About the Author: Elizabeth R. Varon is Langbourne M. Williams professor of American history at the University of Virginia and a member of the executive council of UVA’s John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History. Varon’s books include Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, A Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy, and Appomattox: Victory, Defeat and Freedom at the End of the Civil War. Her most recent book, Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War, won the 2020 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and was named one of The Wall Street Journal’s best books of 2019.For more info on the book click HERE

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Life's Unexpected Blessings is about a woman named Shelia whose life has not turned out like she planned or expected. Along the way she has faced some obstacles but has gotten through them with her faith in God. During her journey, she meets James, who has also faced some of the same challenges. Love soon blossoms between the two. Maybe her life turned out better than she expected.

About the Author

Ms. Michelle Copeland never expected to become an author. She wanted to be many things when she was younger, but she decided she wanted to go into medicine. Ms. Copeland attended UF and majored in pre-med - more specifically, she majored in microbiology. After college Ms. Michelle Copeland tried to get into medical school. She didn't get in, but people say you never get in on your first try. She learned phlebotomy and ecg after graduating college in hopes of improving her chances of being hired with no luck. She put that dream aside to help her family. However, then remembered when she was a young girl that she loved to draw and sketch, so she started painting, and one day Ms. Michelle Copeland decided to write a book. Never say never.

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A vivid narrative history, packed with first-hand accounts, of the US Eighth Air Force's VIII Fighter Command from its foundation in 1942 through to its victory in the skies over Nazi Germany.
On August 7, 1942, two events of major military importance occurred on separate sides of the planet. In the South Pacific, the United States went on the offensive, landing the First Marine Division at Guadalcanal. In England, 12 B-17 bombers of the new Eighth Air Force's 97th Bombardment Group bombed the Rouen–Sotteville railroad marshalling yards in France. While the mission was small, the aerial struggle that began that day would ultimately cost the United States more men killed and wounded by the end of the war in Europe than the Marines would lose in the Pacific War.
Clean Sweep is the story of the creation, development and operation of the Eighth Air Force Fighter Command and the battle to establish daylight air superiority over the Luftwaffe so that the invasion of Europe could be successful.
Thomas McKelvey Cleaver has had a lifelong interest in the history of the fighter force that defeated the Luftwaffe over Germany. He has collected many first-hand accounts from participants over the past 50 years, getting to know pilots such as the legendary “Hub” Zemke, Don Blakeslee and Chuck Yeager, as well as meeting and interviewing leading Luftwaffe pilots Adolf Galland, Gunther Rall and Walter “Count Punski” Krupinski. This story is told through accounts gathered from both sides.

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver has been a published writer for the past 40 years, with his most recent work being the best-selling Osprey titles MiG Alley (2019), I Will Run Wild (2020), Under the Southern Cross (2021), The Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club (2021), Going Downtown (2022), The Cactus Air Force (2022) alongside the late Eric Hammel, and most recently Clean Sweep (2023).Tom served in the US Navy in Vietnam and currently lives in Encino, California.For more info on this book click HERE

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Tom Rachman’s debut, the New York Times bestselling The Imperfectionists, wasa novel-in-stories, each chapter told of a different character in the news business at a time of journalistic tumult. (Rachman was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press stationed in Rome, then an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris.) His new novel, THE IMPOSTERS , spotlights a different writer per chapter set in our moment of cultural tumult--a standup-comedy writer in LA; a delivery driver hired to write fake-news in London; a pretentious Brooklyn author struggling through a literary festival in Australia. At the center in all ways is Dora Frenhofer, a once successful novelist who knows her mind is going and is determined to finish her final book and reverse her fortunes. The plot stops in New Delhi and New York, Copenhagen and Los Angeles, Syria to Paris, inhabiting the perspectives of Dora’s missing brother, her estranged daughter, a lover, and her last remaining friend. Alone in her London home during the pandemic, Dora creates, and is in turn created by, the characters from her own life.

Tom Rachman is the author of five works of fiction: his bestselling debut, The Imperfectionists (2010), which was translated into 25 languages; the critically acclaimed follow-up, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers (2014); a story collection, Basket of Deplorables (2017); a novel set in the art world, The Italian Teacher (2018); and a novel-in-stories about writers, The Imposters (2023).
Born in London and raised in Vancouver, Tom studied cinema at the University of Toronto and journalism at Columbia University in New York. He worked at The Associated Press as a foreign-news editor in Manhattan headquarters, then became a correspondent in Rome. He also reported from India, Sri Lanka, Japan, South Korea, Egypt, Turkey and elsewhere. To write fiction, he left the AP and moved to Paris, supporting himself as an editor at the International Herald Tribune.
His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker, among other publications. Today, he is a contributing columnist at The Globe & Mail. He lives in London.

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ABOUT JOHN HUNTER AND MAPS AND LEGENDS: THE STORY OF R.E.M.

Maps and Legends: The Story of R.E.M. by John Hunter, the most comprehensive biography of R.E.M. yet published. Maps and Legends covers not just the band's entire career, from Radio Free Europe to Collapse Into Now, but also delves deeply into the childhoods of each of the band members. It tells the story of each of the teenage bands one or more of the members played in before R.E.M. - among them Bad Habits, Shadowfax, the Back Door Band, Gangster, and the Wuoggerz - and concludes with a detailed look at the solo work of Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe.

Author John Hunter was born in 1968 in Raleigh, North Carolina. At the age of sixteen, he began to sneak into local clubs such as the Brewery and the Cat's Cradle, where he saw artists ranging from Black Flag, Hüsker Dü, and the Replacements to the dB's, Let's Active, and the Connells. From 1986 to 1991, he studied English at the University of Georgia, during which time he also performed at the 40 Watt Club, Uptown Lounge, and Rockfish Palace. He witnessed firsthand major events in R.E.M.'s career and in the larger Athens music scene during the second half of the 1980s.

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My book is about my interpretation of good over evil, how God takes a simple young man to a man with true values, who became a warrior of God and charity and humbleness to the end, and how God shows how wisdom is the only way to live, the ugliness of violence and crimes to the man that finds unconditional love in a woman that needs her knight and shining armor.

Jonathan Miller was born in Easton, PA. His family comes from Philadelphia and South New Jersey. A fact he's proud of is that the U.S. Constitution was read in Easton Center Square on July 8, 1776. Also Easton is the headquarters of Crayola. He graduated high school and trade school in auto mechanic. He is active in his Lutheran Church and does his best to live by God’s Word.

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A fascinating re-examination of the battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval encounter in history and probably the most decisive naval battle of the entire Pacific War, and one that saw the Imperial Japanese Navy eliminated as an effective fighting force and forced to resort to suicide tactics.

Mark Stille is the author of numerous Osprey titles focusing on naval history in the Pacific. He recently concluded a nearly 40-year career in the intelligence community, including tours on the faculty of the Naval War College, on the Joint Staff and on US Navy ships. He received his BA in History from the University of Maryland and also holds an MA from the Naval War College.You can purchase the book HERE

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ABOUT A LIKEABLE WOMAN

Kira’s back in her affluent hometown for the first time in years and determined to unravel the secrets of her mother’s death–hidden in the unpublished memoir she left behind– even if it kills her. . . .
After her troublemaker mother’s mysterious death, Kira fled her wealthy Texas town and never looked back. Now, decades later, Kira is invited to an old frenemy’s vow renewal celebration Though she is reluctant to go, there are things pulling her home. . . like chilled wine and days spent by the pool . . . like sexy Jack, her childhood crush. But more important are the urgent texts from her grandmother, who says she has something for Kira. Something related to her mother’s death, something that makes it look an awful lot like murder.
When her grandmother gives Kira a memoir that her mother had been working on before she died, Kira is drawn into the past and all the sizzling secrets that come along with it. With few allies left in her gossipy country-club town, Kira turns to Jack for help. As she gets closer to discovering what—and who—might have brought about her mother’s end, it becomes clear that someone wants the past to stay buried. And they might come after Kira next.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

May Cobb is an award-winning author of The Hunting Wives, My Summer Darlings, A Likeable Woman, and Big Woods. Her books have received attention from Book of The Month, The Today Show, and Oprah Daily and have been optioned for film/TV. She has an M.A. from San Francisco State University and her essays and interviews have appeared in The Washington Post and Good Housekeeping. She currently lives in Austin with her family.

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Marie Bostwick’s ESME CAHILL FAILS SPECTACULARLY is an emotional, humorous, and very human novel about what it means to be family—the ties that bind us together and the unintentional hurts that can render us apart. Along the way, Esme learns that failure can be the first step toward the life you’re meant to find.

Set amidst the stunning landscape of Asheville, NC, Esme Cahill returns Esme Cahill returns to her childhood—from New York City, where she was fired from her publishing job, divorced from her husband—at the request of her late grandmother, Adele, who dies suddenly before Esme arrives.

While she finds her footing in a place she hasn’tbeen back to in years, Esme finds the once-charming lakeside retreat run by her family is sliding toward financial ruin. With her grandfather George, estrangedmother Robyn, and a travelling chef Dawes, they set out to rebuild their family’s legacy. In the attic, Esme unearths a trove of museum-worthy art quilts, sewn by Adele. Piecing together the inspiration behind them, Esme discovers a forgotten chapter in her grandmother’s untold story, that of a gifted artist who never received her due.

Marie Bostwick began her writing career in 2005 with her debut, Field of Gold. In the eighteen years since, she has written more than 20 novels and novellas. A lifelong quilter, she weaves quilting into her narratives both to instill her characters with creativity and as a metaphor of piecing together their life stories. Marie travels extensively, speaking at libraries, bookstores, quilt guilds, and at quilt shows. You can follow her book tour appearances for ESME CAHILL FAILS SPECTACULARLY at www.mariebostwick.com.

She lives in Gig Harbor, WA.

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In My Real-Life Rom-Com, Carrie Berk shares her dating adventures (and misadventures) to help teens discover more about themselves and the relationships they deserve. Berk tackles some tough questions with honesty and humor: “I guide the reader through the ups and downs of teen love, intimacy, and coming of age in a social media-saturated society,” Berk says. “My goal is to normalize these conversations between teens and their parents. We don’t have to whisper ‘sex’ anymore.”

Readers will laugh at Berk’s dating disasters experienced during middle and high school. Like the guy who had a fly stuck in his tooth or the boy who had his mommy send a breakup text. Through Berk’s relatable words, teens will learn how to get over a first breakup, understand the art of the “situationship,” make smart, not impulsive decisions, and above all, learn to love themselves.

ABOUT CARRIE BERK:
Twenty-year-old Carrie Berk is a verified content creator across several social media channels including TikTok (3.7 million followers, 114 million likes), Instagram (960,000 followers), Snapchat (116,000 followers), and Pinterest (227,000 followers), with a monthly engagement of more than 70M. Bella Magazine declared her “an ambitious and dedicated boss babe,” and The Wall Street Journal dubbed her “a community-minded young creator.” Berk voices the role of Heather on Season 3 of Brat TV’s Crown Lake and plays Karina in Brat TV’s Stage Fright. She was a cast member of the Paramount+ series Next Influencer. Carrie Berk is a bestselling children’s book author and has co-written over 21 children’s books. My Real-Life Rom-Com is Carrie’s solo YA debut.

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Bestselling author, Reese pick, and GMA pick Chandler Baker is

back with a funny, daring mystery about what happens when ten preschoolers with an odd craving for blood are the only

witnesses to a murder, pitched as Big Little Lies meets Nothing

to See Here Darby, Mary Beth, and Rhea are on personal quests to reclaim aspects of their identities subsumed by motherhood—their careers, their sex lives, their bodies—when their children, who all attend preschool at Little Academy, develop an unsettling medical condition: the kids are craving blood. Then a young teacher is found dead, and the only potential witnesses are ten adorable 4-year-olds. Soon it becomes clear that the children are not just witnesses, but also suspects. . . and so are their mothers.

As the police begin to look more closely, the children’s ability to bleed their parents dry becomes deadly serious. Part murder mystery, part motherhood manifesto, Cutting Teeth explores the standards society holds mothers to—along with the ones to which we hold ourselves—and the things no one tells you about becoming a parent.

Chandler Baker lives in Austin with her husband and toddler, where she also works as a corporate attorney. She is the author of several young adult novels and her adult debut, Whisper Network, was a New York Times bestseller and Reese's Book Club pick. The Husbands was a USA Today bestseller and a Good Morning America Book Club pick. Cutting Teeth is her third novel for adults.

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Propulsive, complex, and well-crafted, FORGOTTEN WAR by Don Bentley is part military thriller and part spy novel. The story reads like an action-movie and is the perfect read for fans of Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney, and Lee Child. Don Bentley’s military background gives him the unique ability to write pulsepounding action with authority. He flew an Apache attack helicopter in Afghanistan and was the air mission commander of the aerial quick reactionary force attempting to rescue Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell as part of Operation Red Wings. This operation was the basis of the book and film Lone Survivor. After his time in the military, Bentley was an FBI special agent. In his writing, Don draws from his own combat experience and hopes that fellow veterans will connect with Defense Intelligence Agency operative Matt Drake. Readers were first introduced to Matt Drake in Without Sanction (2020) and were immediately captivated by his humor, heart, and desire to do good no matter the cost that sets him apart from your typical thriller protagonist and is one of the reasons dedicated fans have been eagerly awaiting each next installment in the series.

About the Author Don Bentley is the New York Times bestselling author of Tom Clancy Zero Hour, Tom Clancy Target Acquired and the Matt Drake series (Without Sanction, The Outside Man, and Hostile Intent). In 2023, he was named as the new author for the Mitch Rapp series begun by the late Vince Flynn. Don is a former FBI Special Agent, SWAT Team member, and Army Apache helicopter pilot. Learn more at DonBentleyBooks.com


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The trial of Alex Murdaugh captivated the nation and his subsequent conviction for the murder of his wife and son made headlines far outside the South Carolina Lowcountry. Murdaugh, the once powerful patriarch of a prestigious family fell far and fast. Now, in anew book, Tangled Vines: Power, Privilege, and the Murdaugh Family Murders, bestselling true crime author John Glatt takes readers deep into Murdaugh family history to explain their legacy and trace how it all came tumbling down.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
English-born JOHN GLATT is the author of more than thirty books including The Lost Girls and My Sweet Angel, and has over thirty years of experience as an investigative journalist in England and America. He has appeared on television and radio programs all over the world, including Dateline NBC, FOX News, ABC’s 20/20, BBC World News, and A&E Biography.


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From a young age, Larry D. McClure's life was rife with tragedy following the deaths of his cousins, neighbor, father, and twin brother. This series of unfortunate events set him on a course to find answers as to why his life was filled with so much pain. Godward / The Prodigal Steps compiles the answers Mr. McClure found to this burning question over a 40-year period.

Though originally not intended to be published, after many years of research and study, Mr. McClure came to realize that others could benefit from this powerful and lifechanging experience. Using the Bible as the foundation for his research, Mr. McClure draws upon other sources, such as the readings of Edgar Cayce, the Gospel of Thomas, The Law of One: The Ra Material, and the Unity Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, delving deeper into the "how" and "why" things happen in our lives.

Larry D. McClure is just an ordinary man with an extraordinary God. Having been born in poverty, he had the pleasure of sharing the company of others from all walks of life, be it rich or poor, black or white, young or old, male or female, and he found through many conversations that each of us wants the same thing: to know the Truth. Many go their whole life never having found the answer.

Through his research, Mr. McClure strives to help others to find answers and free them of their burdens, for it is only the Truth that sets us free.

You can purchase the book here:

https://tinyurl.com/y4kp94fw


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Amber Glass has spent her entire adult life putting as much distance as possible between her and her hometown of Baltimore, where she fears she will forever be known as “Prom Mom”—the girl who allegedly killed her baby on the night of the prom after her date, Joe Simpson, abandoned her to pursue the girl he really liked. But when circumstances bring Amber back to the city, she realizes she can have a second chance—as long as she stays away from Joe, now a successful commercial real estate developer, married to a plastic surgeon, Meredith, to whom he is devoted.

The problem is, Amber can’t stay away from Joe. And Joe finds that it’s increasingly hard for him to ignore Amber, if only because she remembers the boy he was and the man he said he was going to be. Against the surreal backdrop of 2020 and early 2021, the two are slowly drawn to each other and eventually cross the line they’ve been trying not to cross.

And then Joe asks Amber to help him do the unthinkable…

Since Laura Lippman's debut in 1997, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the "essential" crime writers of the last 100 years. In 2022, Lippman celebrated her silver anniversary as a published author. In that time, she has produced 24 novels, 2 collections of short stories, a serialized novella, a book of essays, and a children's picture book. Her work has been published in more than 25 languages. A New York Times bestseller, she has won more than 20 prizes for her work and been shortlisted for 30 more. Her 2019 novel, Lady in the Lake, is being adapted into a miniseries starring Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram. Lippman lives in Baltimore and New Orleans.


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This book documents events experienced after becoming a Whistleblower against the most powerful debt collection organization in the world. Using fictional characters and conversations, this story exposes efforts to cause financial, emotional, and mental harm to me, my family, and my friends. Tactics such as privacy violations, illegal monitoring and surveillance, misuse of government records, and violation of trusted agreements with third-party banking, healthcare, credit, government officials and data are exploited by this institution to achieve their goal.

About The Author:

I am a senior leader with over 20 years of experience focused on business, finance, and acquisition management. I’m a change agent; transforming and improving business operations and processes. I have two Masters degrees in Business Administration and Information Systems, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Medical and Research Technology. I am also certified in Information Assurance (cybersecurity) and Project Management. I am by no means ignorant or naive. For several years, I worked for the Federal government with no problems, until I decided to take a stand against corruption. I did not know that taking on this new role would also mean a new title - a Whistleblower.

You can puchase a copy of the book here:https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/digital-assassins-surviving-cyberterrorism-and-digital-assassination-attempt

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The planet Saturn is attacked by an overwhelming alien force. David and Danielle Odessa along with family and friends are forced to flee the only homes that they have ever known. Pursued by the Pyorian Domain, the siblings battle overwhelming odds to escape their grasp. They then join a mission to end the alien's siege on the galaxy.

Robert Perrin's A Quest for Survival is for anyone wanting more than a simple science fiction story-and for anyone wanting a moral themed story that is relevant for the current times.

About the Author

Robert E. Perrin is from the small town of Everett, PA. He has been writing for years, and loves to write all kinds of literature, from novels to religious poetry. He uses his writing to focus on a moral or life lesson.

You can purchase the book here:

https://tinyurl.com/munk6fet

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Life's Unexpected Blessings is about a woman named Shelia whose life has not turned out like she planned or expected. Along the way she has faced some obstacles but has gotten through them with her faith in God. During her journey, she meets James, who has also faced some of the same challenges. Love soon blossoms between the two. Maybe her life turned out better than she expected.

About the Author

Ms. Michelle Copeland never expected to become an author. She wanted to be many things when she was younger, but she decided she wanted to go into medicine. Ms. Copeland attended UF and majored in pre-med - more specifically, she majored in microbiology. After college Ms. Michelle Copeland tried to get into medical school. She didn't get in, but people say you never get in on your first try. She learned phlebotomy and ecg after graduating college in hopes of improving her chances of being hired with no luck. She put that dream aside to help her family. However, then remembered when she was a young girl that she loved to draw and sketch, so she started painting, and one day Ms. Michelle Copeland decided to write a book. Never say never.

You can purchase the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Lifes-Unexpected-Blessings-Michelle-Copeland/dp/1648043968/ref=sr_1_1?crid=I884FK4S4VDY&keywords=Life%27s+Unexpected+Blessings+BY+Michelle+Copeland&qid=1692030672&sprefix=life%27s+unexpected+blessings+by+michelle+copeland%2Caps%2C331&sr=8-1


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Woman of Steel is the memoir of Mary growing up in a hostile home, enduring rape, beatings, slave-like conditions and atrocious abuse, by a mother who wished she had never been born. Her story begins at the end of WWII, in farm country in New York. Mary also tells of her private moments including the paranormal and visits with a favored extra-terrestrial. She tells her intriguing story demonstrating her will to not just survive the harsh conditions she finds herself experiencing, and what she did to overcome it all so she could thrive. Readers will weep for Mary as she suffers untold cruelties inflicted upon by her parents, will wonder at the paranormal experiences that give Mary comfort, and will feel Mary’s anguish when she allows herself to feel her own pain in her private moments. And readers will cheer her on when Mary stands against her abusers, each time increasing her power for herself.

https://www.amazon.com/Woman-Steel-Survivor-Universal-Insights/dp/1097167917/ref=sr_1_9?qid=1692053326&refinements=p_27%3AMarilyn+Lee&s=books&sr=1-9&text=Marilyn+Lee


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Once again, meet Daisy the cat and her three canine friends, H-Dee, Smokie, and Rocky, as together they face a worldwide pandemic.

The story tackles the Covid-19 pandemic and how everyone's life changed in just one year.

Daisy and Friends What Happened to Yesterday: A Covid-19 Story begins with the definition of the words pandemic and essential workers. The story then explains the changes in our daily lives before and during the pandemic.

Inspiration for the author's books comes from her working over 20 years as a pre-school teacher observing children at work and play.

About the Author

Barbara J Meredith retired from Kids Express Learning Center & Daycare, LLC in 2013. She was co-owner, director, and head teacher for 14 years. The animals in the Daisy and Friends Books are my pets. The inspiration for the books came from over 20 years as a pre-school teacher observing children's behaviors.

The following are the book titles of Daisy and Friends Books series:

Daisy and Friends How To Stay Healthy

Daisy and Friends Rocky's New Friend

Daisy and Friends Outside Our Window

Daisy and Friends Waiting for the School Bus

Daisy and Friends What Happen to Yesterday A Covid 19 Story

https://www.amazon.com/Daisy-Friends-What-Happened-Yesterday/dp/1682352722/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Daisy+and+Friends+What+Happened+to+Yesterday%3A+A+Covid-19+Story&qid=1687195434&sr=8-1


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Callie is a gifted cat tossed into the cruel world shortly after she is weaned. Callie knows nothing of the world but soon fi nds herself traveling from one place to another, getting into many different situations, and learning to adapt and survive. As Callie travels, she meets a diverse array of humans, some who are good-natured and others who lack even basic humanity.

Callie was born with the gift of nine eyes on the underside of her tail. She embarks on various adventures throughout her story, and her tail eyes become very important to her. Come with Callie on her journeys and discover other mysteries she will uncover about herself.

Meet Sharon Schofill, a retired elementary school teacher from rural eastern North Carolina. She has taken up writing in her free time, focusing on her favorite subject to teach - writing. Her latest piece centers around a feline character named “Callie,” who possesses almost human-like qualities. Through her work, Sharon aims to engage readers and help them appreciate Callie’s unique personality, just as she and her grandson have.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/callie-cat-nine-eyes


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“Reunion Blues” is a love story and a sequel to “Dance Steps” It is a continuation of the story of a Southern boomer coming of age and how art, music, a dance, three girls, and the Vietnam War were determining factors of his journey to manhood. Life makes a Southern boomer grow up fast and strong. The story follows Donald Emmerson and several of his classmates as they follow life’s trials and travels through young adulthood into adult maturity and full growth.
“Dance Steps” and “ Reunion Blues” are works of fiction but are stories that could describe coming of age to adulthood for almost anyone born during the ‘Baby Boom’ following World War II.

You can purchase the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Reunion-Blues-here-where-weve/dp/1635544106/ref=sr_1_2?qid=1691965196&refinements=p_27%3ADon+Harris&s=books&sr=1-2&text=Don+Harris


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Eldrin is a land of stunning natural beauty, terrifying monsters, and seven sentient species. Manipulator takes place during a tipping point in the delicate balance of peace within Eldrin. Peace treaties between kingdoms new and ancient have been broken and war is inevitable between the newly established Bynder Kingdom, a kingdom of giants, and the human Machellia Kingdom. The legendary Kaff, a reclusive and powerful retired hero from an age past, is in a race to find a devastating weapon before it falls into the hands of the ambitious Kendrick Bynder, king of the giants. Jameson, the son of Kaff, is thrust from his comfortable world of routine and seclusion into an adventure of flying galleons, pirates, and a dangerous race to control the mysterious weapon hidden in the northlands of Eldrin.

Brad Kuipers grew up on a dairy farm in Prince Edward County, Ontario, and has always enjoyed fantasy novels and worlds away from our own. He began writing this story at the age of thirteen in an attempt to chronicle the games and stories created in the minds of his siblings and himself. Becoming an author had always felt like a fantasy. In that regard, he is finally living the adventure of his lifetime!

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/chronicles-eldrin-book-1-manipulator


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Staying the Distance showcases the much-needed leadership lessons that sport can teach us: how to improve, perform and achieve, in ways that are effective and sustainable.
Leadership can be hard. It can certainly be relentless. The pandemic has wreaked havoc on the well-being, health and sustained performance of many senior leaders, and yet strong leadership remains central to the performance of every single organization.
Business leaders are very familiar with drawing lessons from elite sport, particularly around teams, leadership and high performance. But we have all been missing a trick. Day in, day out, sport has been showing us not only how to improve, perform and achieve, but how to do so on a sustained basis, consistently delivering results when it matters. This book shines a light on these unseen lessons, and provides a clear and practical roadmap for how to deploy them in the reader's own leadership practices.
With Catherine Baker's unique view into world-class sport and top-level business, and with insights from top performers in both worlds, this book provides a fresh and dynamic take on how - consistently and over the long term - to bring out the best in yourself, and in those you lead.

Founder and Director at Sport and Beyond, Catherine Baker is highly sought after as a keynote speaker due to her unique blend of professional background and deep insight into the world of elite sport. She has appeared on speaker panels at a broad range of events, including a Women in Leadership programme (jointly hosted by Goldman Sachs and Deloitte) and the inaugural AllBright FoundHer festival, and a groundbreaking event held at Lords hosted by Women in Sport. Catherine is also Chair of the Steering Group of the O Shaped Lawyer, and has extensive experience as a non-executive director, most recently as a Trustee on the Board of the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust.


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A collection of poetry Johnnie wrote when he was in the midst of a severe depression, all the while continuing to raise his son and deal with various medical conditions. Although the poems are in no specific order, they document his journey from depression to finding the joy in life again.

About Johnnie Williams: After getting a divorce my life took a turn for the worse and I had to find new ways to “make it.” Once things started to get back on track for me, life threw in a monkey wrench, pain of all types. Through poetry, philosophy, spiritualism, and research I was able to beat the depression and move forward with my life.


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The story of recorded sound--the technological developments, the humans that made them happen and their impact on society, from the phonograph to LPs, EPs and the recent resurgence of vinyl.
In Into the Groove, vinyl collector and music buff Jonathan Scott dissects a mind-blowing feat that we all take for granted today--the domestication of sound. Thomas Edison's phonograph, the first device that could both record and reproduce sound, represented an important turning point in the story of recorded sound, but it was only the tip of the iceberg, and came after decades of invention, tinkering and experimentation. Scott traces the birth of sound back to the earliest serious attempts in the 1850s, celebrating the ingenuity, rivalries and science of the modulated groove.
He examines the first attempts to record and reproduce sounds, the origins of the phonograph, and the development of commercial shellac discs. Then he divulges the fascinating story of the LP record, from the rise of electric recording to the fall of 7-inch vinyl, the competing speed and format wars, and an epilogue that takes the story up to the present-day return of vinyl to vogue.
Into the Groove uncovers tales of intrigue and betrayal, court battles and lesser-known names who are often left out of most histories. Discover a new appreciation of the not-so-simple black disc that holds a special place in the history of music and sound.

Jonathan Scott is a music writer and self confessed astronomy geek. Formerly a contributing editor to Record Collector magazine, he has edited books about Prince, Cher and the San Francisco psych explosion, and written about Nirvana, the Pogues, the Venga Boys, Sir Patrick Moore and Sir Isaac Newton, in a variety of magazines. He received his first telescope aged eight, using it to track Halley’s Comet in 1986. Having followed Voyager's planetary fly-bys throughout his childhood, he first got to write about the missions in 2004. If he'd been in charge of the Voyager Golden Record, aliens would assume humanity had three chords.


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BROTHERS AND SISTERS: The Allman Brothers Band and the Inside Story of the Album That Defined the 70s (St. Martin’s Press) by Alan Paul is a deep dive into the time before and after 1973’s Brothers and Sisters. It was not only the band’s best-selling album, at over seven million copies sold, but it was also a powerfully influential release, both musically and culturally, one whose influence continues to be profoundly felt. Celebrating the album’s 50th anniversary, Brothers and Sisters the book delves into the making of the album, while also presenting a broader cultural history of the era, based on first-person interviews, historical documents and deep research and a trove of never-before-heard interviews conducted by the band’s “Tour Mystic,” Kirk West.

The five-year period between Duane Allman’s 1971 death and the Allman Brothers Band’s 1976 breakup was a remarkable run for the group that helped define the era, rock history and American culture and politics. They played a major role in electing President Jimmy Carter; were intimately linked with the Grateful Dead; and inspired the Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the entire Southern Rock genre. Gregg Allman’s marriage to the iconic star Cher also put the couple at the vanguard of a newly emerging celebrity media culture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ALAN PAUL is the author of the New York Times bestseller One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band, the definitive book on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band and Texas Flood: the Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan. The latter has been optioned and is being developed for both documentary and feature films. Hisfirst book, Big in China, is about his experiences raising an American family, forming a band and becoming an unlikely rock star in Beijing. He also founded Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the music of the Allman Brothers Band, featuring members of the Dickey Betts, Jaimoe and Gregg Allman bands. He is a regular guest on radio shows and a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, Guitar World, and other publications. He lives in New Jersey.


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From the author of beloved novels like World’s End, East Is East, The Road to Wellville, and Drop City, comes a family tale utterly in sync with the absurdity of modern life. The family at the center of BLUE SKIES wants—as so many of us—to do right, get by, in the face of a looming ecological calamity. But, like Job, they are tested over and over by the gods—along with a Burmese python named Willie 2. Scorching temperatures, bee swarms, coastal erosion, invasive species, bug-borne pathogens, low pressure systems, and high pressure stress compete for one’s sanity. No amount of cricket flour cookies and chaparral removal can keep the atmospheric rivers and bomb cyclones at bay. As Boyle sets in motion the chain of increasingly dire events that ensnare the enviro-sensitive parents, Ottilie and Frank, their carefree daughter Cat, and her embittered brother Cooper (who loses his arm to a tick bite), BLUE SKIES provides a cathartic—and ultimately moving—study of the human condition caught between fire and rain.

T. C. Boyle is a novelist and regular contributor to The New Yorker. He has published eighteen novels, including World’s End and The Tortilla Curtain, and twelve collections of short stories. A Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Southern California, he lives in Santa Barbara.


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Stephanie Clifford is an investigative journalist and a bestselling novelist. As a New York Times reporter for almost a decade, she covered courts, business and media. She now writes long-form investigations about criminal justice and business for the Times, the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired, Elle, Bloomberg Businessweek and other publications. Her accolades include the Loeb Award in investigative reporting; the Deborah Howell Award for Writing She grew up in Seattle and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Country-western star Lillian Waters has lived large: performing in front of packed houses with a chaser of hard partying. She came of age with the big names—Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette—but by 1980, they are still charting and her career is on shaky ground.

Out of the public eye for five years, Lillian’s now on a farewell tour, playing honky-tonk bars, backed up by a ragged band comprised of some of her oldest bandmates and some new additions, with no time for rehearsal. She’s also traveling with her secrets, like nursing a diagnosis of cancer that will silence her eventually. Tired of running from her real history—some of which she rewrote to fit country music stardom, some too deeply buried for her to remember—she’s planned her final performance to be in a far corner of Washington state, the place where she was born. It’s time to go home and face her sister Hen, the pain of a terrible betrayal, and the impoverished farm no one knows she came from and left, alone, at age 10.

THE FAREWELL TOUR (Harper; On Sale: March 7, 2023; Hardcover) by Stephanie Clifford is a full-throated ballad. It encapsulates two stories: an intimate portrait of the indomitable Lillian and a panoramic of our culture—from the West’s near-mythical histories of explorers, loggers, trappers, farmers laid out in textbooks and county fair’s Pioneer Days, to the negative spaces where the stories of women are left out.

Clifford, a reporter for almost a decade at The New York Times, brings her reporter’s skills to conjure the rich and complex story of Lillian Waters, aka Lena Thorsell, the second daughter of two defeated immigrants struggling in a country that promised so much. She deftly moves between the eras that defined her tart-tongued heroine’s life: the Depression and the Second World War; her budding career and the rise of Nashville’s male-dominated country music business scene; and the humiliation of aging out in the late 70s. There are hard choices for Lillian every step of the way: of her music, her heart, her soul. Clifford weaves a mesmerizing portrait of one woman’s creativity, ambition and sacrifices in a business made for men.

As the tour brings Lillian finally home, she is forced to reckon with a tragedy she was not prepared to remember. Clifford asks if we can ever be free of our true history: she makes us love her heroine for what she chooses to do with hers—an anthem, a chorus, for the West’s forgotten women.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephanie Clifford is an investigative journalist and a bestselling novelist. As a New York Times reporter for almost a decade, she covered courts, business and media. She now writes long-form investigations about criminal justice and business for the Times, the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired, Elle, Bloomberg Businessweek and other publications. Her accolades include the Loeb Award in investigative reporting; the Deborah Howell Award for Writing Excellence from the News Leaders Association; the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in explanatory reporting; the Deadline Club Award in magazine profiles; and others. Everybody Rise, her first book, was a New York Times bestseller and New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. She grew up in Seattle and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephcliff

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cliffordwrites/


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Finding Moonlight is a poetry collection for those who are looking for an answer. It's for those who are looking for a sign. There is no such thing as a cure for the things that haunt you at night. No matter what, you are worth every breath that you take. Find knowledge and hope in the light at the end of the tunnel. These poems are meant to be a breath of fresh air for those who feel silenced. Find comfort in knowing that there will always be glimpses of light in the darkness.

Sophia Ramsey is a published poet and student. She believes greatly in destigmatizing mental health and the treatments surrounding it. Sophia finds her own safe haven in writing, and loves to share her own struggles with mental health in her poetry. Sophia has been composing poems as a way to cope with her Clinical Depression diagnosis. As Sophia has struggled with herself, she found comfort in writing about her feelings. She is a productive high school student, and student athlete. When she isn't writing poems, she finds comfort in reading, volleyball, and watching cheesy horror movies.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/finding-moonlight


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ABOUT THE PUZZLE MASTER

Reality and the supernatural collide when an expert puzzle maker is thrust into an ancient mystery—one with explosive consequences for the fate of humanity—in this suspenseful thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Angelology
“In short: The Puzzle Master = (The Da Vinci Code + The Silent Patient + sprinkle of Stephen King) x gorgeous writing.”—Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek
All the world is a puzzle, and Mike Brink—a celebrated and ingenious puzzle constructor—understands its patterns like no one else. Once a promising Midwestern football star, Brink was transformed by a traumatic brain injury that caused a rare medical condition: acquired savant syndrome. The injury left him with a mental superpower—he can solve puzzles in ways ordinary people can’t. But it also left him deeply isolated, unable to fully connect with other people.
Everything changes after Brink meets Jess Price, a woman serving thirty years in prison for murder who hasn’t spoken a word since her arrest five years before. When Price draws a perplexing puzzle, her psychiatrist believes it will explain her crime and calls Brink to solve it. What begins as a desire to crack an alluring cipher quickly morphs into an obsession with Price herself. She soon reveals that there is something more urgent, and more dangerous, behind her silence, thrusting Brink into a hunt for the truth.
The quest takes Brink through a series of interlocking enigmas, but the heart of the mystery is the God Puzzle, a cryptic ancient prayer circle created by the thirteenth-century Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia. As Brink navigates a maze of clues, and his emotional entanglement with Price becomes more intense, he realizes that there are powerful forces at work that he cannot escape.
Ranging from an upstate New York women’s prison to nineteenth-century Prague to the secret rooms of the Pierpont Morgan Library, The Puzzle Master is a tantalizing, addictive thriller in which humankind, technology, and the future of the universe itself are at stake.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Danielle Trussoni is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Ancestor, Angelology, and Angelopolis, all New York Times Notable Books, and the memoirs The Fortress and Falling Through the Earth, named one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review. She writes the monthly horror column for the New York Times Book Review. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and winner of the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Fellowship, her work has been translated into more than thirty languages.


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Soul - Inspirations Breathed Through My Heart
Finding inspiration comes easily from the inspirational messages found on the pages of inspirational words and inspirational quotes in Soul.Inspirations that fill your heart and comfort your soul.
The seen world is powered by the unseen world. What is seen in this material world can be changed with a thought. Your thought, your intention can change what you see and experience. Your thought and your intentions are part of the unseen and are part of the All That Is, your Source.
Inside this book you will find inspirational messages channeled from Spirit. These inspirational words and inspirational quotes will help you gain spiritual growth and enlightenment.
Soul -Inspirations Breathed Through My Heart has chapters on:
GOD, Prayer, Energy, Frequency and Flow
Communion, Heart, Emotions, Free-will
Ego, Love, Communication and Behavior
Power and Conflict, Transformation and Transcension
Star Friends, Death, Grief and Afterlife
Inspire your heart with these inspirations for the Soul. Audio cd course available at www.speakingthroughyourheart.com

You can purchase the book here


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Not many shed light on the struggle of an Autism Parent. The highs and lows that come with parenting an Autistic child are far greater than with a child who develops without disabilities. The struggle is real, and so are the emotions these parents feel deep down in their hearts. These emotions are buried and hidden most of the time, and may only be expressed behind locked doors.

The Autism spectrum is broad, and parents are tasked with figuring out ways to push through and be strong. This is a true story of a mother who battles with caring her autism child from both internal and external forces.

SHANTAL STONE was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on February 2, 1991. She is the youngest of six children. She joined the Army when she was nineteen, and has been deployed to Afghanistan during her time in the Army. She received an honorable discharge, and later relocated to Houston, Texas. After she received her Associate of Science degree, she went on to pursue her Bachelor of Science in Occupational Safety and Health. She is a proud mother to her Autistic son, a scholar, and an Army Veteranhttps://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/pieces-puzzle-mother-autistic-son

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Aleah Bass wrote this book for her senior writing project class in her senior year of college. It was a two semester class that included a lot of editing and adding to the book throughout it all with the help of her professor and classmates through Zoom since they were online her whole senior year. Aleah loves reading romance novels or dramas. Her inspiration for this piece was to make it seem like a lifetime movie. She wanted the reader to really feel as though they are in the main character's shoes. While coming up with that, she thought of the idea of making up a fictional character and have them encounter real life events and ran with it. She made this character face hard situations that made her get to her goal of getting into her dream college. Going off of that, Cass had to face addiction, loss, heartbreak and life changing moments that altered her life forever. She comes up on top and makes her come back through self-intervention, recovery, and therapy. It's never too late to get to your dream destination and that is exactly what She wanted her character to portray.

Aleah Bass is from South River, New Jersey, where she still lives. Her passion for writing started around her sophomore year of high school when she started taking honors courses and got to write more poems and in depth stories where she got to free write and just let her thoughts flow. Her family has always supported her love for writing and encouraged her to pursue it in college. Along with writing, she always loved working with kids. She received a bachelors degree in creative writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2021 where she was also in the QUEST program as a secondary and special ed major. She was also on the basketball team and in the sorority Delta Phi Epsilon. She has three nieces and two nephews. That have been her motivation to not give upon my dreams because she wants them to know they can do anything they put their mind to. Chrissy, Tyler, Tara, Amanda and Blake, keep going and don't stop until your dreams become reality.

You can purchase this book here:https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/extraordinary-comeback

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Dutton Caliber will publish the final volume in McManus’ all-encompassing Pacific War trilogy on May 2, TO THE END OF THE EARTH: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945 (Dutton Caliber; May 2023). In the series’ final book, McManus wastes no time dropping readers into the violent, complicated, and heroic chaos of the Pacific War – from the liberation of the Philippines to the Japanese surrender – zeroing in on the massive impact of the US Army and the seemingly insurmountable hurdles soldiers faced in the march towards victory. For readers diving into McManus’ work for this first time, TO THE END OF THE EARTH can easily be read as a standalone, a deep diveinto a pivotal year in military history, and for those who have been invested since the first book, McManus delivers a conclusion well-worth the wait.John C. McManus is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of U.S. military history at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). As one of the nation’s leading military historians, and a recipient ofthe prestigious GilderLehrman Prize for Military History, and the author of fourteen previous well received books on the topic, he is in frequent demand as a speaker and expert commentator. In addition to dozens of local and national radio programs, he has appeared on CNN, Fox News, C-Span, the Military Channel, the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel, Netflix, the Smithsonian Network, the History Channel and PBS, among others. He also served as historical advisor for the bestselling book and documentary Salinger, the latter of which appeared nationwide in theaters and on PBS’s American Masters Series. During the 2018-2019 academic year, he was inresidence at the U.S. Naval Academy as the Leo A. Shifrin Chair ofNaval andMilitary History, a distinguished visiting professorship.

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It is 1883, and America is at a crossroads. At a tiny college in Upstate New York, an idealistic young professor has managed to convince Mark Twain, Frederick Douglass, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Confederate memoirist Forrest Taylor, and romance novelist Lucy Comstock to participate in the first (and last) Auburn Writers’ Conference for a public discussion about the future of America. By turns brilliantly comic and startlingly prescient, The Auburn Conference vibrates with questions as alive and urgent today as they were in 1883—the chronic American conundrums of race, class, and gender, and the fate of the democratic ideal.Tom Piazza’s twelve books include the novels A Free State and City of Refuge, and the post-Katrina manifesto Why New Orleans Matters. He was a principal writer for the HBO series Treme, and a Grammy Award winner for his album notes to Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: A Musical Journey. He lives in New Orleans.

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I hope you find this book helpful in ways you may or may not have been looking for. This may be a book for the girl or woman that never had that special someone to discuss sexual things with, and I am glad to be that person. I hope that if you have hit a dry spell with your partner, need a sexual energy boost, need to feel sexy in your skin again, or want to learn more about sexy things; then this will be of use to you. Dry spells, low sex energy, and not being experienced are all everyday things in life. However, those things can be fixed with time, exploration, and intrigue.

J.D. TUESDAYE,27, wrote her first book while obtaining her bachelor’s degree. She wrote this book with envisions of success in her future. She resides in Georgia, where she was born and raised, but hopes to travel the world.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/pleasing-your-partner-ways-you-never-thought-you-could

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While most successful sidemen are lucky to spend a decade in the music business, multi-instrumentalist Mark Rivera is working on his fifth.

Best known as Billy Joel’s saxophonist as well as Musical Director for Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band, Rivera has shared the stage with some of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s greatest performers, including John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Simon & Garfunkel, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Tony Bennett, Sheila E., Joe Walsh, Hall & Oates, and Peter Gabriel.

How does he do it while avoiding the typical pitfalls—falling out of favor with the band, burnout, depression?

A devoted father and husband for nearly forty years, Rivera’s recollections in Sideman demonstrate that while he struggled to balance the two worlds—a rock ‘n’ roller circling the globe and a regular guy worried about putting food on the table—his body’s compulsion to always be playing music kept him in constant pursuit of “the next gig.”

The sideman is put to the test as he recounts his past from the confines of a global pandemic, and the man accustomed to “keeping up with the music” is forced to put down his instruments and reflect.

Full of optimism, humor, and candor, Rivera turns the spotlight on the sideman’s life, revealing not only what it takes to climb the industry ladder (and stay there), but something more surprising: a bit of ourselves rocking out amongst all those superstars.

Mark Rivera is best known as Billy Joel’s saxophonist, as well as Musical Director for Ringo Starr and his All Starr Band. Rivera is a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist who over the past 50 years has shared the stage and supported some of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s greatest performers, including John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Simon & Garfunkel, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Tony Bennett, Sheila E., Joe Walsh, Hall & Oates, and Peter Gabriel.

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The Path to Break Free From Burnout: Recharge and Reclaim Your Life is divided into three parts :

  • Part One helps readers understand which stage of burnout they are in and empathetically covers the emotional, physical, and mental deterioration they are experiencing.
  • Part Two moves into how to heal from burnout through an interactive, nine-step journey. At each stop are action items for readers to complete to move closer to healing. Part Two ends with a 30-60-90 future selfplan to help readers become accountable for change.
  • Part Three shares how to stay burnout-free through resiliency and preserving energy.

Recently recognized by the NYC Journal as a “Top Life Coach to Watch Out for in 2022,” Amy Mangueira helps people all over the world bring clarity, direction, and positive habits into their lives by filling the gap between where they are now and where they want to be. A 3x entrepreneur with successful acquisitions under her belt, Amy has turned her focus to Humans First Coaching, a coaching network dedicated to guiding over 300 leaders in organizations on how to build healthy cultures, reduce burnout, take care of themselves, and put their employees first. She also has a custom jewelry company that creates fine jewelry for runners, Victory Co. As the host of the self-care podcast “Life on MY Terms,” bringing in thousands of listeners from across the world, Amy chats with experts to help listeners become 1% better and take charge of their lives.

An avid runner, Amy is soon to be one of the first 200 women to complete the Abbott 6 World Major Marathon series. When she isn’t running, Amy volunteers as a coach and program sponsor for Girls On The Run, a national non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening the social, emotional, physical, and behavioral skills of girls to successfully navigate life experiences through running. She lives in St. Petersburg, Florida with her husband, son, and French bulldog.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/path-break-free-burnout

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The solution to every problem, the means to every dream, and all that anyone every needed, wanted or hoped for resides in the sea of energy, vitality, enlightenment, wisdom, and power that dwells within you and within the world around you. This book will help you to discover and access this energy, vitality, and wisdom that will help you to thrive through challenges and adversity. You will be guided through experiences to help you learn how to access your own innate resilient energy. To thrive through life challenges you will rediscover and utilize your childlike resilient energy emerging from your sense of adventure, play, spontaneity, and fun. Noble resilience guidance will help you to feel a greater increase in self-worth and esteem through personal goal achievement and the mechanism of altruism.

This book will guide you through character resilience which is the experience of conserving energy and feeling freedom from guilt through the mechanism of living within a chosen character framework. Ecological resilience is the experience of feeling an infusion of peace and energy from varied enriching environments including colors, natural settings, music, smells, pets and home environments among others. Universal resilience is the amazing experience of connecting to a source of wisdom, energy, and strength beyond normal consciousness. The book continues to explore ways to enrich one's intellectual resilience as well as his or her essential resilience (physical enrichment). The book then takes you on the journey of accessing strengths through the stages of recurring resiliency process.

Progression to thrive through life challenges begins with homeostasis, venturing, disruptions, using integrated health skills, experiencing answers to life challenges through resonation and quickening, and self-mastery. This resiliency process is the journey everyone must take to thrive through stressors and life challenges.

Glenn E. Richardson, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Utah, has authored ten books and dozens of academic journal articles, book chapters, and workbooks. He's provided trainings, speeches and workshops to more than six hundred audiences in the United States and in several other countries. Richardson is the author of the seminal article "The Metatheory of Resilience and Resiliency" in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. He's taught graduate and undergraduate resiliency classes for more than 35 years.

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Enter a world filled with aliens, devils, and other gruesome creatures as author Alan M. McDaniels brings nightmares to life on pages of The Eleventh Hour.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/eleventh-hour-eleven-tales-terror

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Dr. Gerard Varlotta is a graduate of Colgate University (1978) and New York College of Osteopathic Medicine (1983). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Sports Medicine and the American Academy of Pain Medicine. He is Board Certified in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Pain Medicine and a Diplomat of the American Academy of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. He achieved the academic rank of Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at NYU’s Rusk Institute serving as the Director of the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Network and is presently in private practice in New York City and White Plains. He is a member of the International Federation’s Anti-doping and Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee and is presently the Chair of the Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee for the International Tennis Integrity Association. He has been a ringsidephysician for the New York State Athletic Commission since 1991. He is a board member of the Association of Ringside Physicians and an ARP Certified Ringside Physician. He has served as Head Team Physician for the New Jersey Rockin’ Rollers and Long Island Jaws Professional Roller Hockey teams as well as the New Jersey Red Dogs Arena Football team. He has volunteered as a Medical Captain forthe New York City Marathon for 30 years. He is a consultant to Schwartz & Feinsod Football Agency, AMDG Agency, O-Line Performance Center and the International Sports Agency.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/association-ringside-physicians-manual-combat-sports-medicine

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When Tom Breihan launched his Stereogum column in early 2018, “The Number Ones”—a space in which he has been writing about every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, in chronological order—he figured he’d post capsule-size reviews for each song. But there was so much more to uncover. The column has taken on a life of its own, sparking online debate and occasional death threats.The Billboard Hot 100 began in 1958, and after four years of posting the column, Breihan is still in the early aughts. But readers no longer have to wait for his brilliant synthesis of what the history of #1s has meant to music and our culture. In THE NUMBER ONES: Twenty Chart Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music (Hachette Books), Breihan writes about twenty pivotal #1s throughout chart history, revealing a remarkably fluid and connected story of music that is as entertaining as it is enlightening.

THE NUMBER ONES features the greatest pop artists of all time, from the Brill Building songwriters to the Beatles and the Beach Boys; from Motown to Michael Jackson, Prince, and Mariah Carey; and from the digital revolution to the K-pop system. Breihan also ponders great artists who have never hit the top spot, like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and James Brown. Breihan illuminates what makes indelible ear candy across the decades—including dance crazes, recording innovations, television phenomena, disco, AOR, MTV, rap, compact discs, mp3s, social media, memes, and much more—leaving readers to wonder what could possibly happen next.

Tom Breihan is the senior editor at the music website Stereogum, where he writes "The Number Ones," a column where he reviews every #1 hit in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. He's written for Pitchfork, the Village Voice, the AV Club, GQ, and the Ringer, among others. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and kids. He is seven feet tall

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From a Pulitzer Prize winner, a powerful history that reveals how the twin strands of liberty and slavery were joined in the nation’s founding. New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? Leaders of the founding who called for American liberty are scrutinized for enslaving Black people themselves: George Washington consistently refused to recognize the freedom of those who escaped his Mount Vernon plantation. And we have long needed a history of the founding that fully includes Black Americans in the Revolutionary protests, the war, and the debates over slavery and freedom that followed. We now have that history in Edward J. Larson’s insightful synthesis of the founding. With slavery thriving in Britain’s Caribbean empire and practiced in all of the American colonies, the independence movement’s calls for liberty proved narrow, though some Black observers and others made their full implications clear. In the war, both sides employed strategies to draw needed support from free and enslaved Blacks, whose responses varied by local conditions. By the time of the Constitutional Convention, a widening sectional divide shaped the fateful compromises over slavery that would prove disastrous in the coming decades. Larson’s narrative delivers poignant moments that deepen our understanding: we witness New York’s tumultuous welcome of Washington as liberator through the eyes of Daniel Payne, a Black man who had escaped enslavement at Mount Vernon two years before. Indeed, throughout Larson’s brilliant history it is the voices of Black Americans that prove the most convincing of all on the urgency of liberty. Edward J. Larson is the author of many acclaimed works in American history, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning history of the Scopes Trial, Summer for the Gods. He is University Professor of History and Hugh and Hazel Darling Chair in Law at Pepperdine University, and lives with his family near Los Angeles. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/steve-richards/support

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In this exquisitely produced book, experience the extraordinary life and career of the original “shock rocker” through 75 key releases and events.

Pythons, guillotines, stage blood…Alice Cooper is widely considered the godfather of shock rock thanks to his inventive concoction of vaudeville, horror film conceits, and three-chord rock ’n’ roll. In Alice Cooper at 75, veteran rock journalist Gary Graff shows you this rock icon through the lens of 75 career accomplishments, events, and partnerships. This exquisite volume features:

  • Slipcased hardcover format
  • Stunning concert and candid offstage photography
  • Images of memorabilia, including gig posters, vinyl record sleeves, ticket stubs, period adds, and more
  • Gatefold Alice Cooper timeline
  • Unpublished 8×10-inch photo
  • Two pullout posters

Through seven-and-a-half decades, Graff covers it all:

  • Cooper’s childhood in Detroit and Arizona and early garage bands the Earwigs and the Spiders
  • All 28 studio albums, including those as front person of Alice Cooper the band
  • A selection of his greatest singles, like the classic-rock standards “I’m Eighteen,” “School’s Out,” and “Welcome to My Nightmare”
  • Collaborations with artists including Slash, Dave Grohl, Johnny Depp, Wayne Kramer, and more
  • Associations with notable guitarists, including Glen Buxton, Nita Strauss, Orianthi, and others
  • Nonmusical passions like classic cars and, of course, golf
  • His relationship with wife and entertainment accomplice Sheryl
  • Tireless charity work

Beginning with his1969 debut LP Pretties for You and continuing throughhis latestrelease, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Alice Cooper is regarded as one of the most influential performers and musicians in hard rock and heavy metal, influencing countless acts both visually and musically. This book is your unprecedented retrospective of Cooper’s career from teenage garage rocker to international star and celebrity.

The result is a unique and lavishly produced celebration of the iconic and beloved rock star.

Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist based in Detroit. He is a regular contributor to the Billboard, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Media News Group, Ultimate Classic Rock, Consequence, and other publications, as well as to radio stations in Detroit and Milwaukee. He is the co-author of Neil Young: Long May You Run, Rock 'n' roll Myths: The True Stories Behind the Most Famous Legends, and Travelin' Man: On the Road and Behind the Scenes with Bob Seger, editor of The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen A to E to Z, and the series editor of the MusicHound Essential Album Guides. He is also co-founder and co-producer of the Emmy Award-winning Detroit Music Awards. Graff lives in Beverly Hills, Michigan.

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Long ago, the Untveski Empire conquered the eastern half of Alaris and have ruled their subjects with an iron fist ever since. Within this subjugated land is Owen, a young, Alarian mage and a member of the Headhunters Mercenary Company. Being a mercenary allows for more freedom and better pay than most Alarians are given under Untveski rule, but it also requires them to fight alongside the Untveski legions whenever they require it. This situation was at least tolerable so long as the mercenaries were only asked to help defend the borders from marauders and the like, but then one day they are ordered to assist in ruthlessly crushing the rebellion of an Alarian town. This traumatic event motivates the mercenaries to consider a third option outside the dichotomy of living as slaves, or assisting the oppressors, and the solution may just reside with the fiercely independent wood elves of the western forest region, a long-standing enemy of the Untveski.

A lifelong geek and history buff, Jason Kyle also loves tabletop gaming, fantasy fiction, and action movies. He also has spent over twenty years in the U.S. Army, which includes three tours to Iraq between 2003 – 2011. These interests and experiences inspired Jason to try his hand at writing.

Jason currently lives in Georgia with his young son and their cat, Shadow.

Honor Lost by Jason Kyle | Writers Republic Bookshop

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This book is about different types of sexual encounters from personal experiences, and most of it will make someone laugh and most will want to try some moves out. But this really just gives someone entertainment to read and also learn from someone's personal experiences. Each chapter has a learned lesson and it's important women or anybody who reads knows the lesson and also get a laugh out.

About S.O. Marie:

I went to school to become a social worker. As time went on and when I got my degree I realized I didn't want to work in the mental field and deal with Traumas but all I am good at is helping people with their problems so what else can I do? Then someone gave me the Idea of becoming a sex therapist. She told me "you're really good at sex advice and know how to help people who struggle in different ways, plus you make it entertaining, so go for that" So that's what my goal became. I started to get into it and studied ways on helping people with all sexual topics such as fluidity, sexual anxiety, controlling sexual addictions, overcoming challenges of communicating with a sexual partner and so much more. That's when I came up with the idea of creating a book with personal sex experiences that can help people with this topic and even have a laugh. It's really a good way of helping you know how to choose your sex partner and overcome all the challenges that comes with it even your past.

You can purchase the book here

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Legendary Giants coach Tom Coughlin takes readers inside his coaching masterpiece: Super Bowl XLII when Eli Manning and the underdog Giants beat the undefeated, 18-0 Patriots of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. Super Bowl XLII was the greatest upset in NFL history. In A GIANT WIN, Coach Tom Coughlin recounts the strategies and people that made it possible. Coach Coughlin reveals the intricacies of the game, revealing details only a coach would know. He also details, more than ever before, his relationships with some of the greatest, most iconic players of those Giants teams, like Eli Manning and Michael Strahan. A GIANT WIN also provides a frame for Coach Coughlin to discuss his life in football—including his years with the Giants as an assistant coach in the late 1980s and 1990, when he helped win a Super Bowl working under Hall of Fame Head Coach Bill Parcells and alongside the coach he’d oppose in Super Bowl XLII: Bill Belichick. A GIANT WIN is a self-portrait of one of football history’s most successful coaches during his signature game.

About The Authors: Tom Coughlin is a former National Football League head coach who was part of three New York Giants Super Bowl winning teams, twice as head coach. He won his first Super Bowl while an assistant to legendary coach Bill Parcells in 1990. In 2004, he joined the New York Giants for 12 seasons as head coach, leading the Giants to victory in Super Bowl XLII and Super Bowl XLVI, both times beating the New England Patriots. Coughlin ranks as the 14th winningest coach in NFL history with an overall record of 170 wins. Greg Hanlon is an editor at People magazine who has written for Sports Illustrated, The New York Times and Slate. His writing has been anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing. He was a 2015 finalist in national reporting for The Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. He is the co-author of Watch My Smoke: The Eric Dickerson Story.

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In the year 2032, a biochemical weapon rained over the human race. Those under the guise of being human were stripped of their skin, and their true forms were revealed.

The world fell into chaos as these Starseeds were being targeted and killed one by one. Starseeds soon became vastly outnumbered by the Soulless.

The Sumerian goddess, Asherah, predicted the fall of humankind. She warned the world that one woman would build an army and replenish civilization with a god by her side. The two would restore the earth to her proper form.

The great awakening has begun.

T.K. Moore is a creative writer, and always has been since elementary School. All of her  writing projects have stemmed from her dreams, so everyone who enjoys her books get a sneak peek into her brain.

The War Between by T.K. Moore | Writers Republic Bookshop

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In CHUCK BERRY: An American Life (Hachette Books) biographer RJ Smith crafts a comprehensive portrait of  one of the great American entertainers, guitarists, and lyricists of the 20th century, bringing Chuck Berry to life in vivid detail. Based on interviews,  archival research, legal documents, and a deep understanding of Berry’s St.  Louis (his birthplace, and the place where he died in March 2017), Smith sheds  new light on the notoriously enigmatic icon, a man few have ever really understood.

RJ Smith has been a senior editor at Los Angeles Magazine, a contributor to Details, a  columnist for The Village Voice, a staff writer for Spin, and has written for GQ, New York  Times Magazine, Elle, and Men's Vogue. His book The One: The Life and Music of James  Brown was among the New York Times' "100 Notable Books of 2012." Smith lives in Los  Angeles.

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Featuring a wealth of in-depth research and newly uncovered details, A Man of Iron explores the remarkable life and extraordinary career of Grover Cleveland—one of America’s most unusual presidents and the only one to serve two non-consecutive terms.

Grover Cleveland’s political career—a dizzying journey that saw him rise from obscure lawyer to president of the United States in just three years—was marked by contradictions. A politician of uncharacteristic honesty and principle, he was nevertheless dogged by secrets from his personal life. A believer in limited government, he pushed presidential power to its limits to combat a crippling depression, suppress labor unrest, and resist the forces of American imperialism. A headstrong executive who alienated Congress, political bosses, and even his own party, his stubbornness nevertheless became the key to his political appeal. The most successful Democratic politician of his era, he came to be remembered most fondly by Republicans.

A fascinating look at a unique man presiding over a transformational era, A Man of Iron is a compelling and vivid biography joining the ranks of presidential classics such as David McCullough’s John Adams, Ron Chernow’s Grant, and Amity Shlaes’s Coolidge.

Troy Senik is an author and former White House speechwriter whose writing has appeared in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, City Journal, and more. A former think tank executive, he is the cofounder of Kite & Key, a digital media company focused on public policy.

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Before the consecutive two-term administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, there had only been one other trio of its type: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Kevin R. C. Gutzman’s THE JEFFERSONIANS: The Visionary Presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe (St. Martin’s Press) is a complete chronicle of the men, known as The Virginia Dynasty, who served as president from 1801 to 1825 and implemented the foreign policy, domestic, and constitutional agenda of the radical wing of the American Revolution, setting guideposts for later American liberals to follow. The three close political allies were tightly related: Jefferson and Madison were the closest of friends, and Monroe was Jefferson’s former law student. Their achievements were many, including the founding of the opposition Republican Party in the 1790s; the Louisiana Purchase; and the call upon Congress in 1806 to use its constitutional power to ban slave imports beginning on January 1, 1808. Of course, not everything the Virginia Dynasty undertook was a success: Its chief failure might have been the ineptly planned and led War of 1812. In general, however, when Monroe rode off into the sunset in 1825, his passing and the end of The Virginia Dynasty were much lamented. THE JEFFERSONIANS details a time in America when three Presidents worked toward common goals to strengthen our Republic in a way we rarely see in American politics today.

KEVIN R.C. GUTZMAN is Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University and a faculty member at LibertyClassroom.com. He has his law degree from the University of Texas Law School and his Ph.D. in American history from the University of Virginia. His books include Thomas Jefferson - Revolutionary; James Madison and the Making of America; Virginia’s American Revolution; and, with Thomas Woods, Who Killed the Constitution

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Rosemary Schmidt wanted to find ways for people – including herself – to be happier, and it turns out there are a thousand little things we can do to invite a little more happiness into our lives, but only a few things that really make a difference. In this book Schmidt both entertains and inspires, blending personal narrative with relatable research from the fields of sociology, psychology and neurology. Without telling you what to do, she offers a roadmap and allows you to chart your own course. The Happy Clam will make you think and leave you smiling.

About the Author Rosemary A. Schmidt is a Boston-area author, blogger, and Geologist. She published her first book, Go Forward, Support! The Rugby of Life, in 2003, offering a philosophy of life based on rugby. Her second book, The Happy Clam, was released in 2020 in the early days of the pandemic. In between, Rose started a blog in 2014 (Rosebud’s Blog) where she writes about current events, art, science, culture, and society. Rose holds a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Geology from the University of Dayton, and a Master’s of Science in Geology from the University of Illinois, and works as a Professional Geologist. Rose originally hails from the Chicago area, and now resides in the Boston area with her spouse, Susan.

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What was an American after the United States was founded in 1776? Most Americans of the day would be stumped by that question. They tended to think of themselves more as Virginians or New Yorkers, not Americans. That is until Massachusetts Senator and later Secretary of State Daniel Webster entered the scene, popularizing the ideas of American nationalism that helped forge a sense of national identity, one that would later inspire Abraham Lincoln to fight to preserve the union and launch the Civil War. Considered one of the greatest orators of his time and a statesman in the same league as Washington, Hamilton and Madison, who earned the reputation “defender of the Constitution,” Webster is a profoundly influential but often overlooked titan of American history. And that is why we are delighted to share with you here from historian and constitutional scholar Joel Richard Paul—INDIVISIBLE: Daniel Webster and the Birth of American Nationalism, a fascinating account of the brilliant and complex figure who defined what it means to be an American.

ABOUT JOEL RICHARD PAUL

Joel Richard Paul is a professor of constitutional and international law at the University of California Hastings Law School in San Francisco. He is the author of Without Precedent: Chief Justice Marshall and His Times, and Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright and a Spy Saved the American Revolution. He lives in Northern California.

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Stacy Schiff dazzles us again, this time with the forgotten story of an American original. In her distinctive voice, Schiff restores Samuel Adams to the pantheon of the most influential Founding Fathers on the 300th anniversary of his birth—and at a time when democracy appears especially fragile. Thomas Jefferson once asserted that if there was one leader of the Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” Without him, his cousin John said, “the true history of the American Revolution can never be written.” A humble hero, a man of sterling integrity and deep faith yet a failed businessman who was adrift for the first act of his life, Samuel Adams stands among the most successful revolutionaries of all time. But despite his celebrated status among his contemporaries, he has largely vanished from the record. Convinced that liberty and self-determination were essential rights, he led an ingenious, egalitarian campaign of civil resistance against England. Organizing boycotts and massaging the news, churning out propaganda under an army of pseudonyms—some of them newly uncovered by Schiff—Adams arguably did more to bring about independence than any other Founder.

Stacy Schiff is the author of Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, winner of the George Washington Book Prize and the Ambassador Book Award; Cleopatra: A Life, a New York Times Top Ten Book of the Year and winner of the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography; and, most recently, The Witches: Salem, 1692. Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. A NYPL Library Lion, a recipient of an Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, she has contributed to the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books, among other publications. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she lives in New York City. For more information, please visit www.stacyschiff.com

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THE LAST FOLK HERO: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson by acclaimed  sportswriter Jeff Pearlman. Hailed as a “master storyteller” (NPR.org), Pearlman is the New York Times bestselling  author of nine previous books on iconic subjects, including ‘80s Los Angeles Lakers (Showtime, the basis for the hit 2022  HBO series Winning Time, directed by Adam McKay), the 1986 New York Mets (The Bad Guys Won), the ‘90s Dallas  Cowboys (Boys Will Be Boys), and NFL legend Walter Payton (Sweetness). Now, Pearlman turns his remarkable talents to  a figure he considers to be in a class of his own, indeed the greatest athlete of all time, who forever redefined the  modern sports superstar.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR JEFF PEARLMAN is the New York Times best-selling author of nine books, including The Bad  Guys Won, Boys Will Be Boys, Showtime, and Sweetness. HBO adapted Showtime, his book on  the 1980s Lakers, into a major scripted dramatic series produced and directed by Adam  McKay. A former Sports Illustrated senior writer and ESPN.com columnist, Pearlman is the  host of the Two Writers Slinging Yang podcast and blogs regularly at jeffpearlman.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeffpearlma


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Healing Verses is a compilation of poetry and therapeutic approaches aimed at helping adult survivors of child abuse begin, or continue on their journey of recovery towards wholeness and self-empowerment. It is not a replacement for professional psychotherapy, but would likely enhance progress.

In my 39-year social work career, I learned that children who were robbed of their childhoods through abuse or trauma, often spend a lifetime being revictimized at the hands of others or through their own actions, thoughts and/or addictions. They frequently live their lives having little or no control of their destiny because they continue to feel powerless over life and the people in it. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, adult survivors, are over achievers, workaholics and self-sacrificial.

Few enjoy quality intimate relationships, due to guardedness, insecurities, or emotional extremes due underdeveloped emotional expression skills. The painful memories of their childhoods consume their energies and resources in the vicious cycle of trying to escape these recollections. This is a book that offers hope to its readers by acknowledging their wounds and providing a compass.

You can purchase the book here:Healing Verses: A Journey Towards Empowerment by Sophie Serna | Writers Republic Bookshop


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THE MORTAL TEST is about exploring the heart and soul of humanity and attempts to define what it means to be human. Building one’s character is a major theme as well as how man experiences the natural world. In these poems, I strive to venture through the pain of being human while also sending a final message of hope. My dream is that by reading it, a person may fi nd inner strength to battle through this gauntlet we call life and carry on despite the odds or what other might say.

RYAN M. DIXON was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and is the eldest of two brothers. He has been

married to his wife, Greta, for nine years and has two children. Ryan was a EMT for four years up

until 2015 when he left the medical fi eld to become a supervisor with the US Postal Service. He has a

passion for weight lifting and poetry and has a love of writing clearly expressed through his poems.

This book is availbale at writersrepublic.com


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A Plum’s Tale follows the life of twin sisters Maë and Nayou. The girls usually enjoy eating their fruits. However, it is another story when it is time to eat their plums!

Saradjen Bartley Pelissier is a children’s book author. She was born in

Haiti and later moved to Canada where she lives now. Before she started

writing books, she obtained a bachelor’s degree at Concordia University.

After wearing many hats as a professional, she later rekindled her true

passion: writing! A Plum’s Tale holds a special place in her heart, not just

because it’s her first book but she was carrying her first child as this “baby”

was getting published. Aside from writing, she enjoys crocheting, painting,

and playing with her dogs.

A Plum’s Tale by Saradjen Bartley Pelissier | Writers Republic Bookshop


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Go along the adventure with the little Viking who could do more as he finishes his chore. A wacky adventure of a Viking whose chore is to find a forever friend.

The Little Viking Who Could Do More by Harmony Brantley | Writers Republic Bookshop


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The perfect companion to the upcoming Masters of the Air series on Apple TV+, this is a superbly illustrated examination of the aircraft, pilots, crews, and operations of the US Eighth Air Force.

The US Eighth Air Force—known as the “Mighty Eighth”—was a combat air force activated in Georgia, USA on January 28, 1942. Its bomber command soon moved to Northern Europe to conduct strategic bombing missions against Hitler’s Reich. Among the major operations it participated in were Operation Pointblank; “Big Week” in February 1944; the D-Day landings in June 1944; and the defeat of the Luftwaffe and destruction of German industry. It was the largest of the deployed combat Army Air Forces in numbers of personnel, aircraft, and equipment

This fully illustrated book explores the US Eighth Air Force’s bomber, fighter, and recon planes, the incredibly brave airmen and hard-working ground crews, and the myriad missions and dramatic operations of America’s post-1942 contribution to the destruction of Nazi Germany’s ability to wage war.

Packed with dozens of intricate color aircraft profiles, vivid battlescene artworks, technical illustrations, tactical diagrams, and period photographs and charts, The Mighty Eighth presents you with a wide-ranging look at the illustrious history of the US Eighth Air Force in World War II.

About the author:

Donald Nijboer lives in Owen Sound, Canada. His previous works on World War II includeCockpit: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Interiors, Gunner: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions, Cockpits of the Cold War, and Graphic War: The Secret Aviation Drawings and Illustrations of World War II. Donald has also written articles for Flight Journal, Aviation History, and Aeroplane Monthly.


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After appearing seemingly out of nowhere, a young boy with purple skin is found by the king and queen of Eagalia and taken in by them. Years later, the capital city is attacked by a blood wraith. After losing his arm to the wraith, Shay sets out to try and defeat the wraith once and for all for the safety of not only his home, but all of the world. Joined by a city guard, an elf and a wizard, Shay discovers that no one is as they seem and there is far more to the world than he could have ever known.

About The Author:

"They say you die twice. Once when you're laid to rest and the second time when they say your name on earth for the last time." This is a quote that scared Trevor Ward. Born in 1998 in Grand Forkes, North Dakota, Trevor Ward is a man that spends a lot of time immersed in fantasy worlds due to unrelenting criticism of the modern world. He wants nothing more than to be remembered when he's gone, so he decided on being a storyteller. Everyone leaves a legacy behind, so this is the one that he chose.

Freyan Legends: Heroes of Eagalia by Trevor Ward | Writers Republic Bookshop


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Speaking of Writers Part 5 of a series on Victory in Japan Day (VJ Day 8/15/45. The remarkable story of the seven African American soldiers ultimately awarded the World War II Medal of Honor, and the 50-year campaign to deny them their recognition.

In 1945, when Congress began reviewing the record of the most conspicuous acts of courage by American soldiers during World War II, they recommended awarding the Medal of Honor to 432 recipients. Despite the fact that more than one million African-Americans served, not a single black soldier received the Medal of Honor. The omission remained on the record for over four decades.

But recent historical investigations have brought to light some of the extraordinary acts of valor performed by black soldiers during the war. Men like Vernon Baker, who single-handedly eliminated three enemy machineguns, an observation post, and a German dugout. Or Sergeant Reuben Rivers, who spearhead his tank unit's advance against fierce German resistance for three days despite being grievously wounded. Meanwhile Lieutenant Charles Thomas led his platoon to capture a strategically vital village on the Siegfried Line in 1944 despite losing half his men and suffering a number of wounds himself.

Ultimately, in 1993 a US Army commission determined that seven men, including Baker, Rivers and Thomas, had been denied the Army's highest award simply due to racial discrimination. In 1997, more than 50 years after the war, President Clinton finally awarded the Medal of Honor to these seven heroes, sadly all but one of them posthumously.

These are their stories.

Robert Child is a military history writer, director, and published author with Penguin/Random House. The film rights to his book, co-authored with Denise George, The Last Eleven have been acquired. Robert Child has also garnered more than 26 writing and directing awards including an Emmy® nomination and is one of only a handful of writer/directors whose work has screened in the United States Congress. His film, The Wereth Eleven, was nominated for an Emmy® and won the highest honor at the G.I. Film Festival in Washington DC, the Founders Choice Award. In 2011, the survivor's association of the World War II aircraft carrier, USS Franklin, singled Child out for Honorary Crew Membership aboard the most decorated vessel in U.S. Naval history. Robert lives in Atlanta, Georgia.


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Speaking of Writers Part 4 of a series on Victory in Japan Day (VJ Day 8/15/45. The hard-hitting history of the Pacific War's 'forgotten battle' of Peleliu - a story of intelligence failings and impossible bravery.

In late 1944, as a precursor to the invasion of the Philippines, U.S. military analysts decided to seize the small island of Peleliu to ensure that the Japanese airfield there could not threaten the invasion forces. This important new book explores the dramatic story of this ‘forgotten' battle and the campaign's strategic failings. Bitter Peleliu reveals how U.S. intelligence officers failed to detect the complex network of caves, tunnels, and pillboxes hidden inside the island's coral ridges. More importantly, they did not discern - nor could they before it happened - that the defense of Peleliu would represent a tectonic shift in Japanese strategy. No more contested enemy landings at the water's edge, no more wild banzai attacks. Now, invaders would be raked on the beaches by mortar and artillery fire. Then, as the enemy penetrated deeper into the Japanese defensive systems, he would find himself on ground carefully prepared for the purpose of killing as many Americans as possible.

For the battle-hardened 1st Marine Division Peleliu was a hornets' nest like no other. Yet thanks to pre-invasion over-confidence on the part of commanders, 30 of the 36 news correspondents accredited for the campaign had left prior to D-Day. Bitter Peleliu reveals the full horror of this 74-day battle, a battle that thanks to the reduced media presence has never garnered the type of attention it deserves.

Pacific War historian Joseph Wheelan dissects the American intelligence and strategic failings, analyses the shift in Japanese tactics, and recreates the Marines' horrific experiences on the worst of the Pacific battlegrounds. This book is a brilliant, compelling read on a forgotten battle.


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Speaking of Writers Part 3 of a series on Victory in Japan Day (VJ Day 8/15/45. This is one of the most remarkable untold stories of the Second World war. At 11.02 am on an August morning in 1945 America dropped the world's most powerful atomic bomb on the Japanese port city of Nagasaki. The most European city in Japan was flattened to the ground 'as if it had been swept aside by a broom'. More than 70,000 Japanese were killed. At the time, hundreds of Allied prisoners of war were working close to the bomb's detonation point, as forced labourers in the shipyards and foundries of Nagasaki.

These men, from the Dales of Yorkshire and the dusty outback of Australia, from the fields of Holland and the remote towns of Texas, had already endured an extraordinary lottery of life and death that had changed their lives forever. They had lived through nearly four years of malnutrition, disease, and brutality. Now their prison home was the target of America's second atomic bomb.

In one of the greatest survival stories of the Second World War, we trace their astonishing experiences back to bloody battles in the Malayan jungle, before the dramatic fall of Fortress Singapore, the mighty symbol of the British Empire. This abject capitulation was followed by surrender in Java and elsewhere in the East, condemning the captives to years of cruel imprisonment by the Japanese.

Their lives grew evermore perilous when thousands of prisoners were shipped off to build the infamous Thai-Burma Railway, including the Bridge on the River Kwai. If that was not harsh enough, POWs were then transported to Japan in the overcrowded holds of what were called hell ships. These rusty buckets were regularly sunk by Allied submarines, and thousands of prisoners lived through unimaginable horror, adrift on the ocean for days. Some still had to endure the final supreme test, the world's second atomic bomb.

The prisoners in Nagasaki were eyewitnesses to one of the most significant events in modern history but writing notes or diaries in a Japanese prison camp was dangerous. To avoid detection, one Allied prisoner buried his notes in the grave of a fellow POW to be reclaimed after the war, another wrote his diary in Irish. Now, using unpublished and rarely seen notes, interviews, and memoirs, this unique book weaves together a powerful chorus of voices to paint a vivid picture of defeat, endurance, and survival against astonishing odds.

John Willis, author of Nagasaki: The Forgotten Prisoners, is one of Britain’s best known television executives. He is a former Director of Programmes at Channel 4 and Director of Factual and Learning at the BBC. He was Vice-president of National Programs at WGBH Boston. In 2012 he was elected as Chair of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). He is currently Chair of Mentorn Media, producers of Question Time for BBC and he also chairs the Board of Governors at the Royal Central School for Speech and Drama. He divides his time between London and Norfolk.


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Speaking of Writers Part 2 of a series on Victory in Japan Day (VJ Day 8/15/45). Using diary entries, interviews and first-hand accounts, this vivid narrative brings to life the struggle in the air over the island of Guadalcanal between August 20 and November 15, 1942.

For 40 years from 1961, the late Eric Hammel interviewed more than 150 American participants in the air campaign at Guadalcanal, none of whom are still alive. These interviews are the most comprehensive first-person accounts of the battle assembled by any historian. More importantly, they involved the junior officers and enlisted men whose stories and memories were not part of the official history, thus providing a unique insight.

The battle of Guadalcanal was the first offensive operation undertaken by the US and its allies in the Pacific War. "Cactus," the code name for the island, became a sinkhole for Japanese air and naval power, experienced forces whose losses could never be made good. The three months of air battles between August 20, 1942, when the first Marine air unit arrived on the island, and November 15, when the last enemy attempt to retake the island was defeated, were perhaps the most important of the Pacific War. After November 15, 1942, the US never looked back as its forces moved across the Pacific to the war's inevitable conclusion.

The Cactus Air Force is a joint project between the late Eric Hammel and Pacific War expert Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, and is unlike any other of the many histories of this event that have been published over the years.

The late Eric Hammel was one of America’s leading military historians with more than 40 well-received books published over a 50-year career. His previous books on the Solomons campaign, Carrier Clash, Carrier Strike, Decision at Sea, and Starvation Island, are among the leading authoritative sources on the subject due to their extensive use of first-person testimony.

Thomas McKelvey Cleaver has been a published writer for the past 45 years with his most recent work, Going Downtown (2022), being the latest addition to his best-selling Osprey titles The Frozen Chosen (2016), Pacific Thunder (2017), Tidal Wave (2018), Holding the Line (2019), MiG Alley (2019), and I Will Run Wild (2020). During his 30 years as a screenwriter in Hollywood, he wrote the cult classic The Terror Within and worked as a supervising producer on a number of TV and cable series. He served in the US Navy in Vietnam and currently lives in Encino, California.


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Speaking of Writers Part 1 of a series on Victory in Japan Day (VJ Day 8/15/45). August 15, 1945 officially marked the end of World War II, but in fact conflict continued throughout the month. This fascinating title from Barrett Tillman explore the final weeks of the war, until the shooting finally stopped.

In the 44 months between December 1941 and August 1945, the Pacific Theater absorbed the attention of the American nation and military longer than any other. Despite the Allied grand strategy of “Germany first,” after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. especially was committed to confronting Tokyo as a matter of urgent priority.

But from Oahu to Tokyo was a long, sanguinary slog, averaging an advance of just three miles per day. The U.S. human toll paid on that road reached some 108,000 battle deaths, more than one-third the U.S. wartime total. But by the summer of 1945 on both the American homefront and on the frontline there was hope. The stunning announcements of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 seemed sure to force Tokyo over the tipping point since the Allies' surrender demand from Potsdam, Germany, in July. What few understood was the vast gap in the cultural ethos of East and West at that time. In fact, most of the Japanese cabinet refused to surrender and vicious dogfights were still waged in the skies above Japan.

This fascinating new history tells the dramatic story of the final weeks of the war, detailing the last brutal battles on air, land and sea with evocative first-hand accounts from pilots and sailors caught up in these extraordinary events. Barrett Tillman then expertly details the first weeks of a tenuous peace and the drawing of battle lines with the forthcoming Cold War as Soviet forces concluded their invasion of Manchuria. When the Shooting Stopped retells these dramatic events, drawing on accounts from all sides to relive the days when the war finally ended and the world was forever changed.

Barrett Tillman is a professional author and speaker with more than 40 nonfiction books as well as novels to his credit. His first book, published in 1976, remains in print today as do most of his subsequent titles. He holds seven awards for history and literature including the 1996 Tailhook Association Lifetime Achievement Award and third place in the US Naval Institute Prize in 2009. Tillman has appeared in more than a dozen documentaries including The History Channel’s Dogfights.


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Levon Helm: Rock, Roll & Ramble, the new book from journalist John W. Barry, based on and inspired

by exclusive interviews with Levon Helm.

About John W. Barry

Born in the Bronx, raised in the New York City suburbs of Rockland County and living in New York State's Hudson Valley since 1990, John W. Barry is an award-winning journalist with a passion for writing and a love of music.

This combination has brought John to some pretty incredible places and put him in the company of some incredible people. From Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan to Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado and many places in between, John's relentless pursuit of the stories, the people and the circumstances that define the world around us has enabled him to assemble the puzzle pieces of a compelling tale or two over the course of his lifetime.

John is a very proud graduate of Clarkstown South High School and the State University of New York at New Paltz. The latter is what brought John to Ulster County, New York and set him on his path to Woodstock, Levon Helm Studios and the Midnight Ramble. As a journalist for the USA Today Network's Poughkeepsie Journal in Dutchess County, New York, John found himself in the center of Levon's Midnight Ramble house concerts, getting to know Levon, his band, his crew, his management team, Team Levon and, of course, his fans.

One thing led to another and some years later, John's passion for writing and his love of music has crystallized in the book, Levon Helm: Rock, Roll & RambleThe Inside Story of the Man, the Music and the Midnight Ramble.

In the wake of the publication of this book, John is already working on his next project and continuing to do what he enjoys most, hiking and camping in the Hudson Valley's stunning terrain, cooling off in its swimming holes and breathing in deeply its crisp night air.

Rock Roll & Ramble (rockrollramble.com)


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Heartfelt is a collection of well written, thought-provoking works of art. It was not written in

the mold, or under the guise of a traditional poetry book. Heartfelt is much more than that,

destined to stimulate the readers' critical thinking, enhanced by words of wisdom, stirring

up breathtaking imagery as the writer's message(s) pulls the reader further in. The writer's

intentions are clear and concise, nudging readers toward a spiritual path: Self-Love, Self-

Actualization, and spiritual growth. Perhaps the writer's greatest ability resides in allowing the

reader to see the world through his eyes with excellent story telling coupled with profound

meaning, giving readers a chance to escape and analyze the harsh realities of this world.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/heartfelt


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This time instead of inspired by true love, here are 75 short poems inspired by the love of the holy scriptures; that like true love can create deeply moving emotions within us. Allowing us to love even that which cannot be seen. As a bible enthusiast; especially William Shakespeare's King James version of the bible; though not very religious, have been influenced by its verses. The word when read with interest and love, is life-changing; as we are changed by true love. One does not need religious institutions to develop an intense love and admiration for scripture. And you do not need to believe in a higher power for this book to be of influence; though it might be appreciated more fully with the faith that there is a force greater than us that can deeply impact our lives for the better. That can keep us going even in the worst of times.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/word-advice


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This is a collection of what has brought me to who I am today,

always reminding me of where I should be going. I do hope it

helps you more.

I have always been a people-watcher. I imagine the life they live that has nothing to do with mine. I see similar struggles and many different solutions. Learning what works depends entirely on whoyou are, whether it heartbreak, loss, joy, love, or everything in the middle which I call confusion. I want my writing to help be a guide for empathy and progress.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/love-poems-and-other-stuff


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Who am I going to be? Where in the world will I settle down? The journey into the future covers two years, from 1983 to 1985, as a young man who escapes native Poland in political turmoil and economic disaster in the heat of the Cold War to become a lecturer at FUTY, a fledgling university in Yola, a remote town in Nigeria. Vivid images of West Africa, the hardships of life in the "white man's graveyard", dealings within a small international faculty and with the "nomads" from Poland and countries of the West are the backdrop for the story. Obstacles pile up: bringing family from Poland; the military coup in Nigeria; bloody Islamist riots in town; possible shutdown of FUTY; the near-death of a friend. Anxiety and doldrums linger. Finally, the idea of "the second leap" gets a chance to come of age. However, its implementation is not without hurdles, and the departure from Yola is not without adventures.

The events portrayed in the memoir split my life into two parts, almost equal in duration. Born in Poland, then separated from most of Europe and the world by the Iron Curtain, I had a peaceful childhood in a middle-class family. I enjoyed my schools and teachers and completed my education by reading economics; then, I was a lecturer and researcher, married and had a stepdaughter. In the second part of my life, I worked as a software engineer on many exciting projects in Canada and USA. I had a daughter, later two grandchildren, and retired. My hobbies include travel, photography, and gardening when I cannot travel. I also have a pair of cats, as I had in Vast Plain, suspended, some thirty-five years ago. You can purchase this book here:

Writers Republic - Self-Publishing and Book Printing Company


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About the Book Born and raised in rural Mississippi and the even balmier climes of central Florida, Red Barber, at the age of thirty-two, became one of New York City’s most influential citizens as the play-by-play announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers. When he arrived in 1939, Barber brought the down-home drawl and idioms of his southern roots to the borough, where residents said they could walk down any street and never miss a pitch because his voice wafted out of every window and every passing car. From his colorful expressions like “rhubarb” and “sitting in the catbird seat” to his vivid use of similes—a close game was “tighter than a new pair of shoes on a rainy day”—Barber’s influence on his contemporaries and the many generations of broadcasters who followed him cannot be overstated. But behind all the base hits, balls, and strikes lies a compelling story that dramatizes the shifting expectations and roles of a public figure—the sports broadcaster—as he adapted to complex cultural changes throughout the course of twentieth-century American life.

Author Bio

Judith R. Hiltner is professor emeritus of literature and languages at Saint Xavier University and the author of books and articles on American literature and culture, including critical and biographical studies of Herman Melville, Philip Freneau, and Deborah Sampson. James R. Walker is professor emeritus of communication at Saint Xavier University and a past executive director of the International Association of Communication and Sport. He is the author of several books, including Crack of the Bat: A History of Baseball on the Radio (Nebraska, 2015), and is the coauthor of Center Field Shot: A History of Baseball on Television (Nebraska, 2008).


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It wasn't easy for me to get four books written in ten months of The Dead and the Bizarre are here and all around us, but they're all done. I didn't think that I would write any more books. But I am. The next book up is Abaddon Heart, the king of the locusts, a demon that even Satan himself fears. A book of terror that will keep you up at night. It's pure horror starting right from the beginning to the end. If it turns out to be a movie, it will keep you in your seats. Don't blink because you'll miss something. Hope to see you in the popcorn line. Extra butter and salt? Hurry, the movie is starting in five minutes.

This book can be purchased here: The Dead and the Bizarre are here and all around us: Final Chapter 4 by David A. Landry | Writers Republic Bookshop


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This is a fictional novel based on true events. It is about three youths being raised in the

housing projects of Paul M. Pearson Gardens. While facing their struggles of growing up

in the Ghettos and adapting to the streets of the Virgin Islands, they become a product

of their environment, where crime and violence are a normal part of their everyday lives.

Money, guns, and drugs became their passion. With no positive influences for them to look

up to, they follow and embrace the negativity that comes from the streets. Unfortunately,

it’s a revolving cycle in the hood. Getting caught up in it is very easy, but the consequences

that follow are severely hard.

This story is based in the era of the late ’80s and ’90s during the crack epidemic that

plagued America and the effects it had on the Virgin Islands.

Kishawnie Henry aka Billy Blasta, was born and raised in the Virgin Islands. Growing up in the housing projects of Paul M. Pearson Gardens, aka the Ghettos, he became a product of his environment and was shot and paralyzed at the age of seventeen.

Being removed from the physical aspects of the streets, he developed a passion for writing. With music being his first love, he wrote and produced several mixtapes and albums before deciding to explore his talent in writing a book.

You can purchase this book at: Writers Republic - Self-Publishing and Book Printing Company


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On June 19, 1864, a fourteen-month chase culminated in one of the most dramatic naval battles in history. The dreaded Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the death, and the outcome would effectively end the threat of the Confederacy on the high seas. Award-winning and bestselling historians Phil Keith (who was a US Navy Captain) and Tom Clavin share this riveting, mostly untold, story in To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth: The Epic Hunt for the South's Most Feared Ship―and the Greatest Sea Battle of the Civil War (Hanover Square Press). Informed by comprehensive research, extensive photos, maps, and the authors’ expertise, the book is a fresh blend of military, naval, and Civil War history.

The authors’ last book, All Blood Runs Red, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and praised by the Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, and more, and the pair are known for gripping yet substantiative narratives. In To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth, Keith and Clavin introduce some of the crucial but historically overlooked Civil War players, including John Winslow, captain of the USS Kearsarge, as well as Raphael Semmes, captain of the CSS Alabama. Readers will sail aboard the Kearsarge as Winslow embarks for Europe with a set of simple orders from the secretary of the navy: "Travel to the uttermost ends of the earth, if necessary, to find and destroy the Alabama." Winslow pursued Semmes in a spectacular fourteen-month chase over international waters, culminating in what would become the climactic seabattle of the Civil War.

Today: The Confederate raider currently lies in French territorial waters and is the focus of a transcontinental salvage effort to raise funds for dives at the site, the recovery of artifacts, and more historical research. While parts of it have been brought up, most of the ship still lies on the ocean floor.

Most Civil War narratives focus on the battles fought on land, but To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth is a riveting, deep dive into the greatest sea battle of the war.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Phil Keith (1946-2021) was the author of six books, including Blackhorse Riders, which won the 2012 award from USA Book News for Best Military Non-Fiction, was a finalist for the 2013 Colby Award, and earned a 2013 silver medal from Military Writers Society of America. He held a degree in history from Harvard and was a former Navy aviator. During three tours in Vietnam, he served with distinction and was awarded, among other decorations, the Purple Heart, Air Medal, Presidential Unit Citation, and the Navy Commendation Medal.

Tom Clavin is the author of eighteen nonfiction books and has worked as a newspaper editor, magazine writer, TV and radio commentator, and reporter for The New York Times covering a variety of topics. His two most recent books, Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier (with Bob Drury) and Lightning Down: A World War II Story of Survival, were national bestsellers. Other bestselling titles include Dodge City, The Heart of Everything That Is, Tombstone, and The Last Stand of Fox Company.


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Who am I?

am I Egyptian?

am I an Israelite?

I'll never stop being proud of who I am.

so I choose to live in the light.

I can hear the devils rattle in the shadows.

sound the sirens of an age-old battle.

I'll always put up a good fight.

Questions drive the universe.

thoughts shape reality.

father, please forgive me of my transgressions.

I just have too many questions.

So, I sit back an(listen)like Horton because the lessons I've learned are

important.

Who am I?

you are My(son) a lion of Judah with the mark of the Buddha.

whom I carved out of clay blessed with a beautiful heart

your mother shall name you Tres..

have faith in me.

God is the answer to all equations.

The time is now to raise your vibration

This book is available at: writersrepublic.com


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Seventy-five years ago, John F. Kennedy won his first election—that one to represent his home state of Massachusetts in Congress. For many of us, the Kennedy legend began there, with JFK, or perhaps his father, family patriarch Joe Kennedy. But in truth, the Kennedy saga began a full two generations earlier, under a very different set of circumstances.

In The First Kennedys, journalist and authorNeal Thompson introduces us to the Kennedy family that came to these shores fleeing the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. Ultimately, it was a poor, widowed grocer named Bridget who raised her four fatherless children in an East Boston tenement. Displaying traits that would later become Kennedy family hallmarks—tenacity, social acumen, the willingness to take a calculated risk, and a commitment to helping others—within a few generations the family evolved from loathsome invaders to one of the most powerful and beloved families in US history.

The first biographer granted access to PJ Kennedy’s (JFK’s grandfather) private papers, Thompson shares a part of the Kennedy story heretofore untold, yet vital for a fuller understanding of the family’s true legacy.

About Neal Thompson

Neal Thompson is a journalist and the author of six highly acclaimed books, including A Curious Man, Driving with the Devil, and Kickflip Boys. His latest, The First Kennedys: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty, publishes 2/22/22.

A former newspaper reporter, Neal has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, Outside, Men’s Health, Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal, Backpacker, Sports Illustrated and more. Neal has appeared on NPR, PBS, The Daily Show, CNN, C-Span, Fox, TNT, The History Channel, and ESPN. Neal has taught creative non-fiction at the University of North Carolina’s Great Smokies Writing Program, and Hugo House, and served on the board of Seattle Arts & Lectures. Neal is a runner, reader, skier, stand-up paddleboarder, swimmer, yogi, and a naturalized Irish citizen.

Originally from New Jersey, he now lives in Seattle with his family.

www.NealThompson.com

Neal also publishes the Blood & Whiskey newsletter: crime fiction reviews, cocktails, and playlists.

bloodandwhiskey.substack.com


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As Patti Callahan began writing the novel, shortly after she started researching the long-ago shipwreck, it was finally discovered deep beneath the sea. As luck would have it, just a few weeks into Callahan’s research, the actual steamship Pulaski was found thirty miles off the coast of Wilmington, NC, a hundred feet deep. Callahan was given rare access to the recovery mission and the artifacts retrieved. The author used this special insight to shape details about the ship and its passengers in her novel. The characters are drawn from actual shipwreck victims and survivors, particularly the Lamar family of Savannah, who were used as the real-life inspiration for Callahan’s main characters.

In 1838, steam travel had become the way to travel north to escape dreadfully hot summers for well-to-do southerners. SURVIVING SAVANNAH follows one such family of eleven, the Longstreets, who boarded the luxury steamship togetheralong with Savannah’s elite, but would never make it to their final destination as a boiler explosion sank the ship thirty miles off the coast of North Carolina with few survivors.

In present day Savannah, history professor Everly Winthrop is asked to guest-curate a new museum collection focusing on artifacts recovered from the steamship Pulaski, wreckage that was just discovered 180 years later. Everly has suffered a great loss of her own and this opportunity may just be the thing to save her from the grips of grief. As she dives into the research, she uncovers the astounding history of the Longstreets and two extraordinary women from this family: a known survivor, Augusta Longstreet, and her niece, Lilly Forsyth, who was never found, along with her child. These aristocratic women were part of Savannah's society, but when the ship exploded, each was faced with difficult decisions.

ABOUT PATTI CALLAHAN Patti Callahan is a New York Times bestselling author and is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Distinguished Writer of the Year. She is a frequent speaker at luncheons, book clubs, and women’s groups.


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In an era of spectacular thoroughbreds, Spectacular Bid was perhaps the most exalted racehorse of them all. In 1979 he won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes—and transcended his sport on a run of twelve consecutive stakes victories—but his quest for the Triple Crown was lost with a third‑place finish in the Belmont Stakes due to a series of bizarre events that have never been accurately reported.

In The Fast Ride, Jack Gilden tells the story of what really happened that day the Bid lost the biggest race of his life. Along the way, he introduces the reader to a cast of characters from the gilded age of late twentieth‑century horse racing, from Bid’s owners, the renowned Meyerhoff family, to Grover “Buddy” Delp, the fast‑talking trainer, to teenage jockey Ronnie Franklin, whose meteoric rise to fame aboard Spectacular Bid came at the cost of his innocence and well‑being. Also present are four of the era’s magnificent Latino riders, Ángel Cordero Jr., Jacinto Vasquez, Georgie Velasquez, and Ruben Hernandez, who all felt the sting of rejection and bigotry during their long careers even as they found their way and raised the level of competition to a feverish pitch.

Underlying Spectacular Bid’s saga was a thin line between hard work and excess, including substance abuse, animal manipulation and doping, and race fixing. Hardly anyone in the horse’s circle made it out unscathed or undamaged.

The Fast Ride is the story of a great racehorse, unfulfilled dreams, the exhilaration and steep price of striving at all costs, and an American era in which getting everything you ever wanted could be the most empty and unfulfilling sensation of all.

Jack Gilden is a past winner of the Simon Rockower journalism award. He is the author of Collision of Wills: Johnny Unitas, Don Shula, and the Rise of the Modern NFL (Nebraska, 2018). He also consults for businesses about their messaging and teaches journalism and composition at the college level.


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Doris Stoner in MIRROR IMAGE again confronted with her past realizes that it is time to go back home after forty some years away. She goes back to the family home she knew then; with much humility she desperately wants to straighten out her past with her family. Also knowing that she must do this to help stop what she knows will result in a forever hole in her granddaughter’s heart.

Mark Watson began writing in his forties and now thirty years later he publishes three novels, MIRROR IMAGE, TODD, A MAN ORPHANED and GOOD BYE SON all dealing with family difficulties and the  bonds that holds them together even when they feel discarded. Mark Watson is a husband, father and grandfather and enjoys retirement and writing.


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This story is not what you expect it to be. It’s like wandering into the dark without a flashlight.

But you chose this because you wanted to get away. It’s like holding the lives of others in your hands.

Not because you like playing God, but because you don’t have a- Shh. I can’t say more.

I’m not one to give away secrets that don’t belong to me.

I’d hate to give someone else’s story.

I’ll let them tell it.

So, what are you waiting for?

Don’t you want to know why this is in Memory of you?

About the Author

Rodney Martin II was almost born in Minnesota by 2 weeks, but he was born in Memphis, TN instead. Then, after living in Memphis for 5 years, he then moved to Mississippi where he moved 3 more times. There, he attended Mississippi State University. He almost moved to Dallas, TX, but he ended up moving to Virginia instead. While there, he underwent training for the United States Secret Service. But he didn’t let this distract him from his writing, as it has always been his passion. Despite all he went through, from injuries and brushes with death, he never allowed anything to stop him from building worlds with a pen.

Shop links

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop

www.amazon.com/Memory-You-Anthology-Rodney-Martin/dp/B09XBS7Q1M/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2ZMY6HTJTDH5P&keywords=9798885362696&qid=1649697811&s=books&sprefix=%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C791&sr=1-1

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/in-memory-of-you-rodney-martin-ii/1141338331;jsessionid=AA44E45C4999EABB717E1EFEC6440561.prodny_store02-atgap09?ean=9798885362696


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The fascinating story of how the three most influential American progressives of the early twentieth century split over America’s response to World War I.

In the early years of the twentieth century, the most famous Americans on the national stage were Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jane Addams: two presidents and a social worker. Each took a different path to prominence, yet the three progressives believed the United States must assume a more dynamic role in confronting the growing domestic and international problems of an exciting new age.

Following the outset of World War I in 1914, the views of these three titans splintered as they could not agree on how America should respond to what soon proved to be an unprecedented global catastrophe. The Approaching Storm is the story of three extraordinary leaders and how they debated, quarreled, and split over the role the United States should play in the world, a decision that would determine the course of the 20th century.

By turns a colorful triptych of three American icons who changed history and the engrossing story of the roots of World War I, The Approaching Storm is a surprising and important story of how and why the United States emerged onto the world stage.

Neil Lanctot, Ph.D. (pronounced "Lank-toe") is a historian who has written four books, each of which has combined meticulous research with compelling story-telling.

His first, Fair Dealing and Clean Playing: The Hilldale Club and The Development of Black Professional Baseball, 1910-1932, was published in 1994 by McFarland and Company. The book has since emerged as a classic in the genre and was later reprinted by Syracuse University Press.

In 2004, his second book, Negro League Baseball - The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. The book received almost universal rave reviews from the popular and scholarly press, including front cover treatment by the New York Times Book Review.

His third book, Campy - The Two Lives of Roy Campanella, was released in March 2011 by Simon & Schuster to critical acclaim from the Los Angeles Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Philadelphia Daily News, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and numerous other publications. Campy was also named an alternate selection for the Book of The Month Club.

His latest book is The Approaching Storm.

Lanctot's writing has appeared in the Smithsonian, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, and several other journals and anthologies.


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In the spring of 1977, residents of a working-class neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York grew concerned when noxious smelling substances began leaching into basements, floating in local streams and pooling in puddles in backyards and playgrounds. Shortly after, children started suffering mysterious burns while playing outside, and then kids started getting sick—some really sick. What most parents didn’t know was that their homes had been built next to what was once a giant pit called Love Canal, and that decades earlier, Hooker Chemical, the largest employer in the city, had used the canal to dump barrels containing 20,000 tons of chemical waste comprising of some of the most toxic compounds humans ever created. Hooker covered those barrels with earth and then sold the land to the city’s board of education—for a dollar—and the city built an elementary school and a playground directly on top of it. Now, in PARADISE FALLS: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe, New York Times bestselling author Keith O’Brien tells the story of how an unlikely group of neighborhood women uncovered this secret and took on some of the most powerful men in the world, including the governor of New York, a multimillionaire industrialist and the president of the United States, in order to get justice and literally save their families.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Keith O’Brien is a former reporter for The Boston Globe and the New York Times bestselling author of Fly Girls and Outside Shot. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Politico, as well as on National Public Radio shows like All Things Considered and Morning Edition. He lives in New Hampshire.


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The global epidemic of diabetes and pre diabetes afflicts more than 1 billion people. And sadly, more than 50% of people with the disease do not achieve their desired glucose control. In Conquer Your Diabetes: Prevention, Control, Remission, Drs. Martin Abrahamson and Sanjiv Chopra, two Harvard Medical School professors and master clinicians, provide a road map for people with diabetes to manage their condition and live rewarding and fulfilling lives.

In 25 succinct chapters—many containing stories of real patients living successfully with the condition—the authors put all the pieces of the diabetes puzzle together, including information on its types and causes as well as the latest treatments. There’s even material on gestational diabetes, the connection between diabetes and heart disease, and the relatively small amount of body weight (about 7%) that most people with pre diabetes need to lose to reduce their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by more than half.

Martin Abrahamson, MD, FACP is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and previous Chief Medical Officer at Joslin Diabetes Center. He lectures globally on diabetes and has spearheaded educational initiatives on diabetes for physicians around the world. Sanjiv Chopra, MD, MACP, FRCP is a Professor of Medicine and served as the Faculty Dean for Continuing Education at Harvard Medical School for 12 years. The author or co-author of 12 previous books, including Brotherhood: Dharma, Destiny and the American Dreamwhich he co-authored with his brother Deepak, he is the recipient of many prestigious teaching awards and a sought-after speaker lecturing internationally. Together, Drs. Abrahamson and Chopra direct the Division of Continuing Medical Education (CME) at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a major teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and have been conducting CME meetings for more than a quarter of a century.


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A firefly has only two months to live and one goal to complete...

A firefly has one goal in life: to find a mate and lay their eggs before their luck runs out. But will this group of wandering fireflies be able to find their mates and lay their eggs, or will they wander and search to find nothing? Will they be able to differentiate female fireflies from the flickering of human lights that are wrapped around the trees, or will their weeklong journey be for nothing?

Zallina Kira Johnson has always loved books and the different stories that each one has. She would always enjoy creating her own original stories in a paper book, and as time passed, she grew to love creating these stories and hoped one day that she would be able to publish them so that everyone could read them. Zallina lives in Cumming, Georgia, with her mom and two sisters, along with her four pets: one sweet parakeet named Emerald and three cats-Simba, Kion, and Gracie. She currently is a middle schooler, aged twelve, and has a lot of teachers to thank as to why she is so excited to publish these books, especially one of her teachers, Mr. Pullano. He took the time to read her book and has been a really supportive teacher while she has been writing my books.


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In celebration of this significant milestone, Workman Publishing is excited to announce an exclusive gift edition: STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST: 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition by Austin Kleon with a new Afterword by the Author (Workman Publishing).

Kleon’s practical, yet fresh advice is presented with genuine passion and playful illustrations. The book’s positive message, engaging design, and actionable steps changed the face of self-help, teaching millions to find the space they need to unlock their imaginations and do the work. And in a new afterword, Kleon discusses the book’s influence and how “stealing” has been misunderstood—providing a unique, personal perspective on a book that’s touched so many lives over the past decade.

About the author: AUSTIN KLEON is the New York Times bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work!, The Steal Like an Artist Journal: A Notebook for Creative Kleptomaniacs, and Keep Going. His work has been translated into over twenty languages and featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS NewsHour, and in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. New York magazine called his work “brilliant,” the Atlantic called him “positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet,” and the New Yorker said his poems “resurrect the newspaper when everybody else is declaring it dead.” He speaks about creativity in the digital age for organizations such as Pixar, Google, SXSW, TEDx, and the Economist. In previous lives, he worked as a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and sons.

Website: www.austinkleon.com

Twitter and Instagram @austinkleon

Facebook @Mr.Austin.Kleon


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For the first time in the Central Intelligence Agency’s history, a covert operator of major rank and standing pens a fully operational memoir. Ric Prado’s BLACK OPS: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior(St. Martin’s Press) lays out this decorated hero's twenty-four career fighting in the shadows to protect a nation and home that welcomed him at his most desperate hour as a child of communist repression.

In BLACK OPS, Prado shares the harrowing true stories of life in the deadly web of international assassins, spies, revolutionaries, terrorists, and killers. He reveals how he and his fellow CIA officers devoted their lives to operating in the shadows to fight a little-seen or known war to keep the U.S. safe from those intent on destroying the nation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Enrique “Ric” Prado spent a legendary twenty-four year career in the Central Intelligence Agency spanned two era’s: The Cold War and the Age of Terrorism. Mr. Prado received the CIA Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal (highest award given upon retirement) and the George Bush Award for Excellence in Counterterrorism, among others. He is a paramilitary, counterterrorism, and special clandestine operations specialist, and served as an Operations Officer in six overseas posts. Upon leaving public service, Prado worked as an executive at a private military contractor where he built a specialized operations team. He is currently the co-owner of Camp-X Training, where he continues his service training and supporting the SPECOPS community, teaching Advanced Special Operations and Techniques among other essential skills.


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INFECTED: SECRETS FROM THE MEDICAL UNDERGROUND, will teach you how to prevent and treat ANY INFECTION you may encounter. Learn how the different systems of your body work to repel infections, and how you can enhance each one. You will learn previously unknown methods to supercharge your body's immune system, preventing most infections from ever starting. These are secrets only known to a handful of courageous doctors, who have done their own research, networked and discovered ways to "hack" your immunity. These are universal principles that will work to prevent any infection and are currently unknown. Learn how to use over the counter items to "hack" your nebulizer, making it into an infection killing machine as well as a chronic disease healing dynamo. Learn the secrets the medical underground uses to combine certain vitamins, minerals and plant-based nutrients and even over-the-counter meds into surprisingly potent treatments. Discover the powerful, previously unknown ways the unconventional doctors of the medical underground use to prevent and treat any infection including COVID-19, colds, flu and urinary tract infections to name but a few. This ground-breaking book is ALL YOU WILL EVER NEED TO PREVENT AND TREAT ANY INFECTION, all without the use of any prescription medications.

The book is available at writersrepublic.com and on amazon.com

Dr. Ralph La Guardia has spent over three decades researching alternative ways of treating and preventing diseases of all types. He has been in private practice in Connecticut for more than thirty years. During that time, he has learned what alternative and natural methods work and which ones are "snake oil." He has read hundreds of books and research articles on alternative ways of treating different diseases and has a huge personal library of many of these out-of-print books. He is well known in the medical underground of pioneering integrative medical practitioners. Integrative medicine is the highly effective combination of traditional and alternative medicine. He has authored the The Doomsday Book of Medicine, considered by many to be the best book on medical prepping. He has also written The Bible of Alternative Medicine. He lives on an organic farm in Connecticut with his lovely wife Lynne, his feisty ninety-one-year-old mother Mary, and their three dogs and four horses. When not practicing medicine or writing, he spends most of his time in his orchards or his geodesic dome greenhouse, experimenting with growing and propagating edible fruits of all kinds.


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In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood . . . And the Benders were nowhere to be found. This discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders. The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders—one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War—were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.

HELL’S HALF-ACRE is a journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community’s fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Susan Jonusas attended the University of St Andrews and holds a Masters in Science, Technology and Medicine in History from Kings College London. During her Masters she focused on the intersection between crime and technology in the 19th Century. She was a bookseller, but now spends her free time on the archery range. This is her first book and she lives in London.


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Legendary Boston PI Spenser is back in ROBERT B. PARKER’S BYE BYE BABY, the 50th installment in the critically acclaimed saga started by the late Parker and the tenth to be written by New York Times-bestselling author Ace Atkins. Over the years, fans have looked to Spenser—widely considered to be “Parker’s greatest creation” (Chicago Sun-Times)—as a symbol of honor and honesty in a sordid world. Nowhere is this more apparent than in this latest entry, which sends Spenser on the campaign trail with a progressive political ingenue, who is the target of a deadly conspiracy. G. P. Putnam’s Sons is thrilled to publish this electrifying new adventure.

Carolina Garcia-Ramirez is a rising star in national politics, taking on the establishment with her progressive agenda. Tough, outspoken, and driven, the young congresswoman has ignited a new conversation in Boston about race, poverty, health care, and the environment. Now facing her second campaign, she finds herself not only fighting a tight primary with an old guard challenger but also contending with numerous death threats coming from hundreds of suspects.

When her chief of staff reaches out to Spenser for security and help finding the culprits of what he believes to be the most credible threats, Garcia-Ramirez is less than thrilled. Since her first grassroots run, she’s used to the antipathy and intimidation women of color often face when seeking power. To her, it’s all noise. But it turns out an FBI agent disagrees, warning Spenser that Garcia-Ramirez might be in real danger this time.

It doesn’t take long for Spenser to cross paths with an extremist group called The Minutemen, led by a wealthy Harvard grad named Bishop Graves. Although Graves is a social media sensation, pushing an agenda of white supremacy and toxic masculinity, he denies he’s behind the attacks. As the primary nears and threats become a deadly plot, it’s up to Spenser, Hawk, and a surprise trusted ally to ensure the congresswoman is safe. This is Spenser doing what he does best, living by a personal code and moral compass that can’t ever be broken.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Ace Atkins is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-eight books, including ten books in his Quinn Colson series. Handpicked by the Robert B. Parker Estate nearly a decade ago to continue the Spenser series, he's written ten novels about the iconic private eye. He lives and works in Oxford, Mississippi.

Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Police Chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole-Everett Hitch Westerns, as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010.


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Pediatrician Mark Vonnegut has spent forty years treating children for coughs, fevers, ear infections, and sometimes more serious complaints. In that time, he has seen the American medical system change in ways he couldn’t have imagined as a medical student—some of them good, others not so good. But what hasn’t changed is his commitment to his young patients, whose stories fill the pages of this book.

There’s Anna Maria, a little girl with an incurable case of bone cancer; Adeline, who has a syndrome so rare none of Dr. Vonnegut’s colleagues have seen it before; Marlowe, whose life-threatening anemia is cured by his just-born baby brother; Jamal, who is autistic but has so much empathy that he donates his hair to a company that makes wigs for chemotherapy patients; and Malcolm, who is permanently paralyzed from the waist down and whose regular care includes treatment for bedsores, medication for urinary tract infections, and mountains of paperwork attesting that his wheelchair is still “medically necessary.”

Whether recounting the cases that have stuck with him or detailing the changes in medicine that he has seen over the past four decades—the privatization of healthcare, the barriers to mental health services, the skyrocketing costs of insurance and pharmaceutical drugs, and the decreasing quality of care—Dr. Vonnegut is a personable guide through what is often seen as an impersonal system. He doesn’t pull any punches in his criticisms of the medical-industrial complex, but The Heart of Caring isn’t a diatribe. It’s the story of a life lived in medicine, with all the hope and heartbreak that entails.

After writing The Eden Express, a memoir detailing his struggle with psychosis and manic depression, MARK VONNEGUT gained acceptance to Harvard Medical School, from which he graduated in 1979. The father of two grown sons and the grandfather of five, he lives with his wife and his youngest son in Milton, Massachusetts, where he continues to practice primary care pediatrics. Dr. Vonnegut is also the author of Just Like Someone without Mental Illness Only More So (Delacorte Press, 2010).


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Dahlia has fun daydreaming of her favorite things.

Candace DaMeron:

Hi, I’m Candace a mother to two imaginative little girls. Imagination is a beautiful thing and when I see my girls drift off to Lala land, I like to imagine what they could be daydreaming about. I love to see their minds begin to float… it makes me happy that they are carefree and thinking of sweet, magical things.

Available at writersrepublic.com


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George Washington is well known for leading the Continental Army to victory and governing the nascent nation as it was getting off the ground, but few know the story of his involvement in a debate that nearly tore us apart: the establishment of a capital city.

In George Washington’s Final Battle, historian Robert Watson argues that we owe the existence of our nation’s capital in large part to the tireless work and political acumen of George Washington. Washington believed firmly in the importance of having a federal city as capital—rather than a city within a state such as Philadelphia or New York—but this idea was the subject of bitter dispute. It was our first president who negotiated for the location on the Potomac; who oversaw the surveying; raised the funds; chose the architect; and approved the final design.

Watson brings this story to life, showing that the capital city that would eventually bear Washington’s name would certainly not have existed as it does today without his influence. George Washington’s Final Battle will fascinate not only historians but also a broad readership interested in the founding period, the American presidency, and the history of Washington, DC.

Robert P. Watson is Distinguished Professor of American History at Lynn University and the author or editor of more than forty books, including The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn: An Untold Story of the American Revolution, The Nazi Titanic: The Incredible Untold Story of a Doomed Ship in World War II, and America’s First Crisis: The War of 1812. He is a frequent media commentator and activist who has founded three nonprofit think tanks dedicated to civic education, political reform, and fact-checking political campaigns.


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This book is a love letter to all. A letter to all who need to hear it. A love letter to those who have open hearts to enjoy it for what it could do for them. This letter has to do with matters of the heart, matters of life or death. Matters of health or sickness. Matters of compassion or lack thereof. This book I hope is not just a book of words to you, but a letter made up of tough love through thought provoking facts.

Then if you are ready; let the changes in the way you think flood your heart. A flood that will monsoon your life with love for all in a very profound way. As far as for me, I am just a Retired U.S. Army Soldier.

Where I served proudly as Military Police, Engineer, Apache and OH-58 crew chief for the Joint-counter-narcotics-task-force of AZ. I also proudly graduated from a very distinguished Culinary school (NGI) Natural Gourmet Institute to become a nutritionally trained Chef. I have done a few other things in between. The most powerful thing I have been involved is hands down, has been fathering two wonderful children and husbanding the most gorgeous and supportive woman that God has ever created.


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A delightful tale of a rather antisocial ladybug who finds her ant neighbors to be quite annoying. Following an untimely visit from her neighbors, in a fit of frustration, Mrs. L. Bug decides she needs to arrange a move. However, the move is not for herself but for the Ant Family. As Lady begins to formulate her plan, she realizes she doesn’t know where ants live and so begins her journey to find an ant house. This lovely story will have children singing along, learning a little about busy ants, and finally discovering friendship.

Suzanne Perrinis an Early Childhood Professional with a passion for literature. Suzanne has spent many years working in schools, running private day programs, and teaching preschool. She focused a large portion of her time on children with exceptional needs and is fluent in American Sign Language.

Creating beautifully written books requires equally beautiful illustrations. Suzanne’s illustrator is her daughter Katie Morgan,who is an Artist, Draftsman, and mother to three little girls. Together this duo engages young minds with quality children’s literature to be treasured and shared.

https://www.writersrepublic.com/bookshop/mrs-l-bug


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About ONE STEP TOO FAR:

Tim O’Day has been missing for five years. His disappearance wasn’t the first in the Popo Agie Wilderness area, but it generated the most headlines. Tim and his four buddies hiked into the woods just weeks before his wedding for a last hurrah, carrying as much beer and whiskey as franks and beans. The next day, three stumbled back to town, babbling of dark shapes, eerie screams, and vanished friends. Eventually, the fourth groomsman was discovered, disoriented and shell-shocked. But Tim, the would-be groom and most experienced hiker of the group, was never seen again.

When Frankie Elkin arrives in Ramsey, Wyoming, she’s just in time. The four groomsmen; Tim’s father, Martin; Luciana and her trusty cadaver dog, Daisy; a professional Bigfoot hunter; and the town’s legendary Park Ranger, Nemeth, are preparing for one last search. Martin needs to bring his son’s body home – it’s his wife’s dying wish – and the four friends need to move on from that terrible night. When it becomes clear that one of the groomsmen is in no shape for a week-long trek, Frankie manages to worm her way into the motley expedition crew. Despite her lack of training, she finds herself trudging towards one of Popo Agie’s most isolated areas, Devil’s Canyon, on a needle-in-a-haystack mission that requires more physical exertion and mental sharpness than anything she’s ever done.

It doesn’t take long for Frankie to sense that something isn’t quite right. There’s palpable unease amongst the three remaining groomsmen; Martin is obsessive, bordering on manic; and Nemeth is increasingly aloof. Then the sabotages begin. Bear-proofed food goes missing, one of the groomsmen is viciously attacked, and that’s just the beginning. Even worse, everyone shares the same unnerving feeling that they are no longer alone in the wild.

With dwindling supplies and a rising sense of panic, the group is forced to make decisions they never dreamed of, and what started as a search for a lost friend, quickly becomes a battle for survival.

ONE STEP TOO FAR is a breathless race against the clock where Frankie finds herself fighting not just for answers but for her own life. Nature looms as terrifying as any evil mastermind and Gardner’s expert pacing makes this latest thriller impossible to put down.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Gardner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-four suspense novels, including The Neighbor, which won Thriller of the Year from the International Thriller Writers. An avid hiker, traveler, and cribbage player, she lives in the mountains of New Hampshire with her family.


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Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill have been quarantined in Charleston, sidelined for months because of Covid, they finally can tie the knot.

The Israelis—Aaron and Shoshana— deliver a surprise wedding gift: a request to help with an unsanctioned surveillance mission to track down an assassin of a high-ranking Mossad official.

On the mission, the Taskforce and the Israelis uncover a group of rogue operators within the Knights of Malta, a centuries-old charitable organization. A mad zealot is trying to fulfill an ancient biblical prophecy hoping to put the Temple Mount under full control of Israel.

About the Author:

Brad Taylor, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.), is a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Army Infantry and Special Forces, including eight years with the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta, popularly known as Delta Force, where he commanded multiple troops and a squadron. Taylor retired in 2010 after serving more than two decades and participating in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as classified operations in Afghanistan and around the globe. His final military post was as Assistant Professor of Military Science at The Citadel. He holds a Master’s in Defense Analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School, with a concentration in Irregular Warfare.

In 2011, Taylor published his debut novel, One Rough Man, which was an immediate success and launched the Pike Logan series. Now with 16 installments and more than 3 million copies sold, the series has consistently hit the New York Times bestseller list. When not writing, Taylor serves as a security consultant on asymmetric threats for various agencies. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife and two daughters.


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This book is dedicated to all the victims of wars that a small minority of evil and soulless monsters have started and supported for power and profit. Their hubris and contempt for human lives and their perfidious and nefarious use of propaganda against those who refuse to submit to their agenda are the biggest threat to our freedom and liberty. My support also goes to all those, Jews and Gentiles alike, who have the courage to expose the evil of Word Zionism. May their efforts and perseverance enlighten the peoples of the world and prevent the cataclysm that looms over all of us. This book is not meant to spread hatred against anybody. It is lies that promote hatred, because they can be manipulated to suit the liars. Truth cannot be altered and also serves to promote reconciliation and peace.

Rowald Holt was born in 1939 in Southwest Germany, before WWII started. His father owned a photo studio, but was drafted into the German army in 1941 and sent to the Russian front, where he died at year's end.

His mother continued with the photo business until she died in 1949 and he spent his teen-age years at his uncle's. In 1960 he emigrated to Canada where he worked as a photographer, then went to University for a B.A. and B. Ed. And before retirement in 2000, owned an apple and cherry orchard in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia.


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They save our lives every day, and we’ve never heard their stories. The life-or-death intensity of working on the front lines, from America’s greatest unsung heroes.

“The compassion, the work ethic, and the selflessness of nurses … are given the respect they deserve and captured beautifully here.”

–Sanjay Gupta, MD, neurosurgeon and chief medical correspondent, CNN

"James Patterson's account of the twilight world between life and death that nurses inhabit is one of the most moving things I have ever read.”

–Sebastian Junger, author of Freedom and The Perfect Storm

Around the clock, across the country, these highly skilled and compassionate men and women sacrifice and struggle for us and our families.

You have never heard their true stories. Not like this. From big-city and small-town hospitals. From behind the scenes. From the heart.

This book will make you laugh, make you cry, make you understand.

When we’re at our worst, E.R. nurses are at their best.

About James Patterson JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 375 million copies worldwide. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, Dog Diaries and Max Einstein series. James has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops and has been the most borrowed author of adult fiction in UK libraries for the past eleven years in a row. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.


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Growing up Maya Washington didn’t see her father as the world knew him to be—Michigan State University and Minnesota Viking football legend, Gene Washington—she knew him as Dad. Based on Maya’s award-winning documentary, THROUGH THE BANKS OF THE RED CEDAR: My Father and the Team That Changed the Game follows her journey of uncovering just how difficult Gene’s youth in segregated Texas was, and his unorthodox rise to college football stardom at MSU during the height of the Civil Rights movement. In this coming-of-age story, Maya narrates her father’s experiences with racial discrimination as a Black athlete from the segregated South and how his perseverance contributed to her own limited privilege.

Maya’s life-altering experience of attending the funeral of Bubba Smith, her father’s childhood friend and teammate, revealed to her how much the world of football shielded her from the harsh realities that her father had faced. After making the decision to learn more about her father’s past, Maya set out to interview the family members, friends, coaches, and teammates at the center of Gene’s story in order to learn more about the game that was so important to her father. As Maya’s eyes are opened to the reality of her father’s struggles with racism growing up in the South during Jim Crow, she also begins to reflect on her own experiences in her home city of Minneapolis, Minnesota and forms a deeper sense of gratitude for her parents’ devotion to opening doors for her that were closed to them during their youth.

Ultimately, THROUGH THE BANKS OF THE RED CEDAR expresses the growing bond between a father and his daughter, who comes to appreciate the game that changed both of their lives. Maya creates an inspiring depiction of Gene, not only as a star on the football field but also as a father to his three daughters. Maya expounds on controversial themes but expresses a sincere hope for unity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

MAYA WASHINGTON is an award-winning narrative and documentary filmmaker (writer/director/producer), actress, writer, poet, creative director, photographer, and arts educator. She is dedicated to social-impact stories that illuminate aspects of the human experience that are untold or rarely seen or that might benefit from new approaches to issues of diversity and inclusion. For more information visit www.throughthebanksoftheredcedar.com


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Harmon Bliss thinks he's a psychopath.

Harmon has an odd obsession with death, especially when it revolves around murder. He knows about many popular crimes but when a local girl introduces him to a eight-year-old cold case it's the only thing he can think about. Who killed Julia Manhattan and why? Suddenly, this case is taking over his life and he thinks he may actually be able to solve this unsolved murder and the case of his missing classmate in the process. Can he do it?

Jaycie Mandrell is a young author from Alabama. She balances real life and fictional on a daily basis in order to fulfill her hopes of becoming a published author.


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Do you wish you could stop the mayhem of work and life and just take a minute? Do you sense you could contribute more if there were a little more room in the day? Does busyness deprive you and your burnt-out team of the oxygen your talents need to catch fire?

Many have felt that way, yet taking a pause has seemed impossible—until now.

In A Minute to Think, Juliet Funt, a globally recognized warrior in the battle against busyness, provides a powerful guide that will give you the permission, framework, and specific direction you need to do the following:

  • Regain control of your overloaded, caffeinated, inbox-worshiping workday
  • Liberate yourself and your teams from burnout and busywork
  • Reclaim creativity and focus despite the chaos around you
  • Bring thoughtfulness into designing your next work norms
  • Tame the beast of email and escape the mire of meetings
  • Find your precious minute to think

You’re not alone in your yearning for freedom from constant reactivity. The global workforce today is so fried that it belongs in the food court of a county fair. We’re relentlessly behind the curve, dousing fires everywhere, and our 3 a.m. insomnia provides the only unscheduled thinking time of the day.

What we need reinserted in our lives is the missing element of white space—short periods of open, unscheduled time that, when recaptured, change the very nature of work. White space is the stepping back, the strategic pause, the oxygen that allows the sparks of our efforts to catch fire. White space has the power to radically—and simply—reinvent the way we approach work in this maxed-out, post-COVID 21st-century world.

With Juliet’s memorable stories, easy-to-use tools, and razor-sharp instruction, she carves for us an escape route from the overwhelming amount of low-value tasks and the daily avalanche of e-mails, meetings, decks, and reports. Using research, client stories, and a relatable voice, Juliet shows all of us how to reclaim time for thinking and make room for what truly matters. Whether you are an individual trying to build a more sane and humane flow of daily work, a team that wants new levels of efficiency and effectiveness, or an entire organization changing your culture toward thoughtfulness, this book will lead you there.

About the author:

Juliet Funt is a renowned keynote speaker and tough-love advisor to the Fortune 500 who is regularly featured in top global media outlets, including Forbes and Fast Company. She is a warrior on a mission to decrapify work and as the founder and CEO of The Juliet Funt Group, helps business leaders and organizations to unleash their full potential by unburdening talent from busywork. Juliet has earned one of the highest ratings in the largest leadership event in the world, and she has worked with brands such as Spotify, National Geographic, Anthem, Vans, Abbott, Costco, Pepsi, Nike, Wells Fargo, Sephora, Sysco, and ESPN. Visit julietfunt.com for more information.


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As one of the first voices of the University of Kentucky men's basketball program, Claude Sullivan (1924–1967) became a nationally known sportscasting pioneer. His career followed Kentucky's rise to prominence as he announced the first four NCAA championship titles under Coach Adolph Rupp and covered scrimmages during the canceled 1952–1953 season following the NCAA sanctions scandal. Sullivan also revolutionized the coverage of the UK football program with the introduction of a coach's show with Bear Bryant―a national first that gained significant attention and later became a staple at other institutions. Sullivan's reputation in Kentucky eventually propelled him to Cincinnati, where he became the voice of the Reds, and even to the 1960 Summer Olympic Games in Rome. His success was tragically cut short when he passed away from throat cancer at forty-two.

In Voice of the Wildcats: Claude Sullivan and the Rise of Modern Sportscasting, Claude's son Alan, along with Joe Cox, offers an engaging and heartfelt look at the sportscaster's life and the context in which he built his career. Featuring dozens of interviews and correspondence with sports legends, including Wallace "Wah Wah" Jones, Babe Parilli, Cliff Hagan, Ralph Hacker, Jim Host, Billy Reed, Adolph Rupp, and Cawood Ledford, this engaging biography showcases the life and work of a beloved broadcast talent and documents the rise of sports radio during the twentieth century.

About the Author Alan Sullivan is the son of Claude Sullivan and began working in the family broadcasting business, Sullivan Enterprises, at age eleven, assisting with the production of Kentucky basketball and football games. He managed the restoration of the Claude Sullivan Collection at the UK Archives and is a UK Fellow and former member of the UK Library National Advisory Board. Joe Cox is an attorney and is the author or coauthor of ten books, including 100 Things Wildcats Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.


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A homesteading family, consisting of a mother, father and their son Colt, have their quiet life interrupted with the arrival of a wounded bounty hunter, named Jeb. The mother removed two bullets and nurses him back to health. While recovering, he teaches the son the art of the fast draw with a six shooter. When the bounty hunter was fully recovered, he accompanied the son into town for supplies. On their return they find the cabin burnt, Mother dead and Father dying. Before the father takes his last breath, he describes the killers and gives the names he overheard. Colt, and the Bounty Hunter Jeb, team up, to go... On The Vengeance Trail.

Richard grew up on farms and a horse ranch, he drove taxi as a summer job. He spent my life working as a Tool and Die maker. He's taken a Locksmith course just because of my fascination with locks. He joined the Masonic Lodge as did his grandfather, father and son. He's married to my trail riding partner for over 46 years. One daughter, one son and six grandchildren. He's read westerns for fifty some years and decided in retirement to write one of his own. His second book is in the works.


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In ROGUE ASSET, Secretary of State Frank Malone has been kidnapped from his Cairo hotel—his security detail wiped out. President Natalie Cohen is left with several unacceptable options. It's time to think outside the box, and that can only mean one thing: the revival of the Presidential Agent program.

Cohen calls for Charley Castillo to come out of retirement to direct a new Presidential Agent, one Captain P. K. "Pick" McCoy, USMC. Charley may be too old to kick down doors and take names, but Killer McCoy is just the man to get the job done. Together, they will track the kidnapped secretary from Cairo to sub-Saharan Africa. The only problem is that one man can't hope to win against an army of terrorists. Good thing there are two of them.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

W. E. B. Griffin was the author of seven bestselling series: The Corps, Brotherhood of War, Badge of Honor, Men at War, Honor Bound, Presidential Agent, and Clandestine Operations. He passed away in February 2019.

Brian Andrews is a U.S. Navy veteran, Park Leadership Fellow, and former submarine officer with a psychology degree from Vanderbilt and a masters in business from Cornell University.

Jeffrey Wilson has worked as an actor, firefighter, paramedic, jet pilot, and diving instructor, as well as a vascular and trauma surgeon. He served in the U.S. Navy for fourteen years and made multiple deployments as a combat surgeon with an East Coast-based SEAL Team. He and his wife, Wendy, live in Southwest Florida with their four children.


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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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeffery Deaver is the #1 international bestselling author of more than forty novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages. His first novel featuring Lincoln Rhyme, The Bone Collector, was made into a major motion picture starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He’s received or been shortlisted for a number of awards around the world, including Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers and the Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association in the United Kingdom. In 2014, he was the recipient of three lifetime achievement awards. A former journalist, folksinger, and attorney, he was born outside of Chicago and has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University.


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The next high-octane novel from legendary bestselling author Ted Bell featuring Lord Alexander Hawke, the sixth-richest man in England, gentleman spy, and one of the thriller genre’s most well-liked heroes: SEA HAWKE (Berkley Hardcover).

This gripping, breathtaking new adventure is a great jumping on point for new readers wanting to get to know an author who has been lauded by other giants in the field such as Clive Cussler, Nelson Demille, and James Patterson.

After saving the kidnapped heir to the British throne in last summer’s DRAGONFIRE, Alex Hawke is due for some downtime. He’s got a new custom-built yacht and a goal: to get closer to his son Alexi during an epic cruise across the seven seas.

But fate and the chief of MI6, Lord David Trulove, have other plans.

There’s an unholy alliance of nations who are plotting to attack Western democracies. The wily intelligence leader plans to use Hawke to drive a knife into the heart of this conspiracy. From an island base off Cuba to a secret jungle lair deep in the Amazon, on the land and the seas, the master spy and his crew of incorrigibles are in for the fight of their lives—the fight for freedom.

About the author

Ted Bell is the former chairman of the board and creative director of Young & Rubicam, one of the world's largest advertising agencies. He is the New York Times bestselling author of the Alex Hawke series as well as the YA adventure novels Nick of Time and The Time Pirate. He has recently been writer-in-residence at Cambridge University (U.K.) and visiting scholar at the Department of Politics and International Relations.

Visit him online at tedbell.com, Facebook/ted.bell.75, or on Twitter @alexhawke.


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David M. Rubenstein—visionary co-founder of The Carlyle Group, and host of Bloomberg TV’s The David Rubenstein Show— has long dedicated himself to interviewing some of the world’s greatest minds and highest performing leaders. In The American Story, Rubenstein brought us conversations from the nation’s most revered historians on critical lessons from American history. In the bestselling How to Lead, he distilled conversations with the world’s most successful leaders into an essential leadership playbook.

Now, in The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream (Simon and Schuster ), Rubenstein converses with American icons and historians on the ever-evolving American experiment in democracy, culture, innovation, and ideas. The American Experiment explores the diverse make-up of our country’s DNA through interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning historians, diplomats, music legends, and sports giants, including:

  • Jill Lepore on the promise of America
  • Madeleine Albright on the American immigrant
  • Ken Burns on war
  • Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Reconstruction
  • Elaine Weiss on suffrage
  • John Meacham on civil rights
  • Walter Isaacson on innovation
  • David McCullough on the Wright Brothers
  • John Barry on pandemics and public health
  • Paul Simon and Wynton Marsalis on music
  • Billie Jean King on sports
  • Rita Moreno on film

Through these enlightening conversations, The American Experiment brings the American spirit to life, revealing the setbacks, suffering, resilience, ingenuity, and social movements that continue to shape our vision of what America is—and what it can be. In an era of extraordinary global challenges, The American Experiment is a powerful and inspirational reminder of this country’s promise.

About the author:

David M. Rubenstein is the New York Times bestselling author of How to Lead and The American Story. He is co-founder and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private equity firms. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an original signer of The Giving Pledge and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award. The host of The David Rubenstein Show on Bloomberg TV and PBS, he lives in the Washington, DC area.


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Will O’Courtney is the ultimate insider. Having worked as an experienced contract lobbyist in Indianapolis for over a decade, he knows all the ins and outs of back-room deals and trading information. Shortly after his divorce is finalized, Will resolves to turn his life around, and just when he starts to think of leaving the winning course, he lands a contract with a national tobacco company that would change his life forever.

But when he discovers a scheme involving potential legislation for the monopoly of e-liquid tobacco products in the state, he finds out that malfeasance reaches the highest levels of government. Choosing to expose the seedy corruption behind closed doors in the Indiana Statehouse, Will becomes a whistleblower disguised as a lobbyist.

As he deals with suspect colleagues, wondering who he can and cannot trust, Will finds himself falling in love with a sprightly and spiritual young woman, who ultimately leads him to see and uncover the deep cracks along the Winner’s Circle and leave it for good.

Set against the backdrop of contemporary events, Michael Leppert's intelligent and chilling thriller will leave you wanting more.

Michael lives in a historic neighborhood in downtown Indianapolis with his wife, Amy Levander, and their rescue dog, Birdie. Flipping the Circle is his debut novel.


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From poet-author Rikem Philippe comes an anthology of poetry that brings forth expressive and profound ideas and ideals which make readers think, remember, understand, accept and act on. In this new poetry collection, “The Neo Sophia of the 21st Century”, there might be some poems that seem to be too profound but when readers go through them, they will realize that these are actually some of the sentiments or experiences or hopes that they had.

The emotions evoked in this poetry book are real because the poems are honest, straightforward, and frank. They don’t shy away with the truth of what one may think or feel at certain points in their lives that’s why the verses will have an impact to the readers. The rhymes and verses will give readers a respite while some will provide them a moment to take a pause and question.

There’s an empowering message in this collection that readers will find refreshing, especially during these times when people’s voices seemed to be too loud yet not truly heard.

This book is available online and can be purchased at online bookstores: www.writersrepublic.com, www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com


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Fearless adventurer Dirk Pitt, “oceanography's answer to Indiana Jones” (Associated Press), must unravel a historical mystery of epic importance in CLIVE CUSSLER’S THE DEVIL’S SEA, the latest novel in the beloved New York Times bestselling Dirk Pitt Adventure® series created by the “grand master of adventure” Clive Cussler and written by his son Dirk 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

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dirk Cussler is the coauthor with Clive Cussler of eight previous Dirk Pitt adventures: Black Wind, Treasure of Khan, Arctic Drift, Crescent Dawn, Poseidon's Arrow, Havana Storm, Odessa Sea, and Celtic Empire. For the past several years, he has been an active participant and partner in his father's NUMA expeditions and has served as president of the NUMA advisory board of trustees. He lives in Connecticut.


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Author Richard Sills draws from his experience as a former teacher of elementary classes in writing children’s books. In his book, “Christmas Story”, he retells the well-known holiday narrative “The Night Before Christmas” so both the young and adults can enjoy this classic tale. In this story, he lets the adults experience the Christmas magic.

While the children remain sleeping in their beds, it is the adult who gets to witness the wonders of Christmas. He meets Santa Clause and goes on a ride on Santa’s sled while he delivers presents to children everywhere. He asks Santa about his presents and when he returns home, he wakes up his wife and joins his children. He finds his gift is that his wife is going to have a child.

Through sleigh rides and visits with Santa Clause himself, this story shows that the holiday magic can be experienced by all ages.

This book is available online and can be purchased at online bookstores.

About the Author

Educator-Computer Scientist, Richard Sills, made his first appearance on the Joe Franklin TV show on WOR TV in 1977 discussing his "CHILDREN'S ART EXHIBIT" at Columbia Teachers College in New York City. In 1978 he was named "Educator of the Decade" for his experimental use of children as teachers in the New York City public school system. He had taught at the elementary school level in Ocean Hill Brownsville which was an underprivileged area in Brooklyn, New York. He met with remarkable success which was demonstrably shown in the art that the children created. The work was exhibited in numerous other location in New York: Hunter College, Macys, and Citibank to name a few. And he garnered major articles in newspapers including: The Daily News and the Palm Beach Times. He discussed his work on numerous local radio stations as well as: ABC, NBC, and CBS radio which aired nationally. He was a close friend of Bob Kane, the legendary creator of the comic book hero: Batman. Mr. Sills' tremendously successful art exhibits took place in the late 1970s. At that time Newsweek films did a brief segment about his "Children Teaching Children" program which aired nationally.

Mr. Sills made in all 12 appearances on the Joe Franklin TV show and became a close personal friend of Mr. Franklin.

While he attended Boston University, which he graduated from as an English major, he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Boston University Literary and Arts magazine during the turbulent late 60s. He has also studied at Harvard University, Columbia Teachers College, and the New School of Social Research.

Currently, he holds five patents in Computer Science and is represented by THE POTOMAC INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES, a prominent scientific think tank in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Sills has won numerous awards for his poetry. And his award winning patriotic poem: "Our Flag" dedicated to President Reagan is on permanent display in the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California where he was the Founding Sponsor of The Presidential Learning Center.

In 1980, Mr. Sills ran as the "love and good humor" Presidential candidate of the "Children's Party" at the age of 33 to lighten up the campaign. He endorsed President Reagan who went on to win the · election by an overwhelming majority.


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Stories from America’s Most Important Public Lands

Across 193 million acres of forests, mountains, deserts, watersheds, and grasslands, national forests provide a multitude of uses as diverse as America itself. Welcoming 170 million visitors each year to hike, bike, paddle, ski, fish, and hunt, “the people’s lands” offer more than just recreation. Timber is harvested, lost habitats are recovered, and endangered wildlife is protected as part of the Forest Service’s enduring mission.

In Our National Forests, Greg Peters reveals an inside look at America’s most important public land and the people committed to protecting it and ensuring access for all. From the story of how the Forest Service grows millions of seedlings in the West each year, to their efforts to save the hellbender salamander in Appalachia, the narrative spans the breadth of the country and its diverse ecology. People are at the center of the stories, whether the dedicated folks in the Forest Service, or the everyday citizens who support and tend to the protected lands near their homes.

This complete look at America’s National Forests—their triumphs, challenges, controversies, and vital programs—is a must-read for everyone interested in the history of America's most important public lands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Greg Peters is a freelance writer based in Missoula, Montana. Before writing full time as a freelancer, Greg was the director of communications at the National Forest Foundation where, among many other things, he edited the NFF’s magazine Your National Forests. His writing has appeared in National Parks magazine, High Country News, Down East magazine, Big Sky Journal, Outside Bozeman, Missoula Independent, and more.


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Genevieve M. Piturro took a big risk when she gave up the security of a successful job as the vice president of creative services for a television syndicate to launch the national nonprofit Pajama Program, which gives children cozy pajamas and inspiring storybooks , while providing critical sleep health education resources for parents, caregivers, and educators.

Genevieve was inspired to start the Pajama Program by a little girl she met when she volunteered in a New York City shelter. Noticing during her initial visits that the children were sleeping in their clothes, she bought enough pajamas—using her own money—for all the children in the shelter.

One little girl was afraid to take Piturro's gift and timidly whispered to her, "What are pajamas?"

It was at the moment, the most poignant that Genevieve ever experienced, that Pajama Program was born. “With that little girl, I found my true purpose," said Piturro. It was the defining moment that changed my life.” Using her life story as an example, Genevieve tells readers how they can find meaning in their lives, too, including:

Never doubt that the smallest acts can trigger big changes in all aspects of your life

· Trust your inner voice, follow your gut and don’t let uncertainty hold you back

· Keep asking the universe for help and you’ll find answers

· Lead with compassion and you will inspire others to do the same

· Meditation and gratitude contribute to a shift in mindset

· Leadership is measured by how much you advance others

The most important lesson Piturro learned is to embrace the human connection, which has inexplicable power to make things happen. "It's not the Power of One that changes things, it's the Power of One-Another that moves mountains and moves people," she affirms.

If you ask the universe for help, and ask to have your life purpose revealed to you, you will be directed. After meditating for weeks, one day Genevieve heard the words ‘Pajama Program’ inside her head and her life’s purpose was revealed to her.

Your purpose can show up anywhere, anytime at any age. It can change your career, your work relationships, and your personal life.

There will be challenges, says Genevieve, and your life may take unexpected turns, but if you are on your true path, you’ll get through the rocky parts. And if you take action, you’ll find the courage to believe in yourself and in the unlimited power your purpose gives you. You don’t need to see the whole path before you, you just need to take the first step and trust that the next one will be revealed. When each of us connects to our purpose, the sky’s the limit.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Genevieve Piturro founded the successful national nonprofit Pajama Program twenty years ago. To date, the Program has delivered more than 7 million new pajamas and new books to children through its 63 local chapters across the U.S. She is now a professional speaker, consultant, and award winning author, and has appeared in various media, including The Oprah Winfrey Show. Her mission is to inspire people to listen to their hearts. A portion of the proceeds from this book will be donated to Pajama Program and a variety of nonprofits across America. For more information, please visit www.GenevievePiturro.com


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An American fighter pilot doomed to die in Buchenwald but determined to survive.

On August 13, 1944, Joe Moser set off on his forty-fourth combat mission over occupied France. Soon, he would join almost 170 other Allied airmen as prisoners in Buchenwald, one of the most notorious and deadly of Nazi concentration camps. Tom Clavin's Lightning Down tells this largely untold and riveting true story.

Moser was just twenty-two years old, a farm boy from Washington State who fell in love with flying. During the War he realized his dream of piloting a P-38 Lightning, one of the most effective weapons the Army Air Corps had against the powerful German Luftwaffe. But on that hot August morning he had to bail out of his damaged, burning plane. Captured immediately, Moser’s journey into hell began.

Moser and his courageous comrades from England, Canada, New Zealand, and elsewhere endured the most horrific conditions during their imprisonment... until the day the orders were issued by Hitler himself to execute them. Only a most desperate plan would save them.

The page-turning momentum of Lightning Down is like that of a thriller, but the stories of imprisoned and brutalized airmen are true and told in unforgettable detail, led by the distinctly American voice of Joe Moser, who prays every day to be reunited with his family.

Lightning Down is a can’t-put-it-down inspiring saga of brave men confronting great evil and great odds against survival.


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In March 2020 Todd Doughty knew he needed to do something to help him stay connected to the everyday joys of daily life, so he made a list on Instagram of things that make him happy: Someone believing in you. Your foot sticking out from under a blanket in order to find the cool spot. Freshly cut yellow tulips. A really good burger. In the following weeks, as he continued to post lists and as a community started to build up around them, Doughty realized that staying connected to everyday joys mattered more than ever before. This book is an enchanting collection of lists, musings, and prompts that will inspire you to cherish all of the things–from the extraordinary to the everyday, from the big to the little–that bring hope into our lives.

Todd Doughty is currently SVP, deputy publisher of Doubleday and has worked at Penguin Random House for more than two decades. A graduate of Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) and former bookseller, he lives with his partner in Westchester County, New York.


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About the book: Set against the neon backdrop of the San Francisco Bay Area's 90s rave scene, ​Raver Girl ​details Samantha’s double life as she teeters between self-indulgence and sobriety, chaos and calm, all while sneaking under the radar of her entrepreneur father.

About the author:  SAMANTHA DURBIN’S writing has appeared in POPSUGAR ,Yahoo Style , Real Simple , PureWow , Zagat , The Bold Italic , and The San Francisco Chronicle , among others. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband, two sons, and her Adidas collection.

For more information: www.samantha-durbin.com and www.ravergirlthebook.com


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Bestselling and award-winning author and investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan returns with a lightning-paced novel of suspense that will keep readers guessing until the last page: HER PERFECT LIFE (A Forge Hardcover, eBook, and Macmillan Audio). Touching on issues of privacy, family secrets, social media, and living life in the public eye— that’s something Ryan, the longtime on-camera investigative reporter for Boston's WHDH-TV, understands more than anyone. And that makes HER PERFECT LIFE Ryan’s most riveting—and personal—book yet.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN is the on-air investigative reporter for Boston's WHDH-TV. She's won 37 EMMYs and dozens more journalism honors. The nationally bestselling author of 13 thrillers, Ryan's also an award-winner in her second profession—with five Agathas, three Anthonys, two Macavitys, the Daphne, and for THE OTHER WOMAN, the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. Critics call her "a master of suspense" and "a superb and gifted storyteller" and she is the only author to have won the Agatha in four different categories: Best First, Best Novel, Best Short Story and Best Non-Fiction. Ryan’s 2019 release, THE MURDER LIST is a USA Today Bestseller, won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Year, and was an Agatha and Mary Higgins Clark Award nominee. Her 2020 release, THE FIRST TO LIE, also a USA Today Bestseller, is nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and the Anthony Award, and Publishers Weekly called it “Stellar” in a starred review. Ryan is a founder of MWA University and past president of National Sisters in Crime. Visit Hank online at HankPhillippiRyan.com, on Twitter @HankPRyan, on Instagram @hankpryan and on Facebook at HankPhillippiRyanAuthor.


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Since 1974, George F. Will has been a steadfast voice of wisdom and reason for the American people. One of this country’s leading columnists and the author of fifteen previous books, Will has been called “perhaps the most powerful journalist in America” by the Wall Street Journal. Now, he returns with his ninth and most expansive collection reflecting on American culture and the many attacks on expertise, rationality, and conduct by American institutions, courts, political arenas, and social venues in recent times.

In AMERICAN HAPPINESS AND DISCONTENTS: The Unruly Torrent, 2008-2020 (Hachette Books), George F. Will examines a remarkably unsettling thirteen years in our nation’s history, from 2008 to 2020. Leavened by Will’s signature wit, this collection brings clarity to a period of cultural change and unrest.

Will addresses every facet of the American experience, from the American Revolutionary War to a scathing assessment of how State of the Union Addresses are delivered in the modern day. Utilizing a number of columns about court cases, primarily from the Supreme Court, Will also illuminates concerns regarding the composition of the federal judiciary.


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After helping a frightened girl who flagged down their Kenworth in Austin and delivering her to safety, trucker Jojo Boudreaux and co-driver Gator Natoli believe that’s the end of it. Until they find her again in Oklahoma City, and this time she doesn’t want to be saved.

They soon find themselves pulled into dangerous territory. Somali Mafia territory. A place where powerful people manipulate a hundred-billion-dollar industry of prostitution, drugs and international sex trafficking. A place where innocence dies at a cost no one should have to pay.

It’s not long before Jojo is drawn in deeper, fighting for her own life in this violent world of corruption, abuse, and addiction. Armed with her wits and will, the only way to survive is to trust others, accept help from unexpected places, and never, ever give up hope.

About the Author Georgia Author of the Year Linda Sands is the multiple award-winning author of five books in four genres. Always on the hunt for unique characters, fabulous settings and compelling storylines, Linda divides her time between the suburbs of Atlanta, the beaches of The Emerald Coast and a secret place in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In the Cargo Series, Linda introduces tenacious trucker Jojo Boudreaux and a cast of characters whose adventures are directly influenced by the stories of real truckers Linda has interviewed…and possibly pieces of her own life.


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Jaryk Smith, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, has just entered a new relationship with Lucy Gardener—a southerner, also newly arrived in New York—when he learns his oldest friend, Misha, has died under mysterious circumstances in a rural village in eastern India. Travelling there alone to collect his ashes, Jaryk soon realizes this won’t be as simple a trip as he thought once he learns that Misha had been in the midst of staging a play there, Rabindranath Tagore’s The Post Office. Performed in Paris the night the Germans took the city, and in Bangladesh during the crackdowns of General Tikka Kahn, and in the Warsaw orphanage where Jaryk grew up as an act of resistance against the Nazis, he makes it his mission to see through the production in this Indian village. But as he becomes more involved with the play and community, Jaryk is forced to reckon with the survivor’s guilt he has carried for decades and learn how to accept a happiness with Lucy he is not sure he deserves.

JAI CHAKRABARTI’s short fiction has appeared in numerous journals and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Short Stories, and awarded a Pushcart Prize. Chakrabarti was an Emerging Writer Fellow with A Public Space and received his MFA from Brooklyn College. He was born in Kolkata, India, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his family. A Play for the End of the World is his first novel.


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Set in 1950s New York in the shadow of the execution of the Rosenbergs, the memoir documents two pivotal years of Straus’s childhood on Long Island, beginning with him being forced by his parents to leave public school and commute four hours a day to a Yeshiva in Queens where the kids studied the Talmud—in the original Aramaic—for half a day five days a week and fought with words, not fists. But it was fists that Straus was used to after years of fighting off bigger kids who harassed his younger, sensitive, bully-magnet brother. And it was fists that he was used to from home.

An unflinching look at child abuse and one boy’s ability to rise above it, One-Legged Mongoose reminds us of the bonds between siblings, the power of family secrets, and the way we learn to protect ourselves by protecting each other.

Marc Straus is a poet, writer, medical oncologist, and art collector who lives in Chappaqua, NY. He has published four poetry collections including Not God, staged Off Broadway. His poems and stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, and many other literary journals. Marc and his wife founded Hudson Valley MOCA in Peekskill, NY, and Marc runs the Marc Straus Gallery in New York City. One-Legged Mongoose is his first book of prose.


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In the near future, advances in medicine and quantum computing make human cloning a reality. For the wealthy, cheating death is the ultimate luxury. To anticloning militants, it’s an abomination against nature. For young Constance “Con” D’Arcy, who was gifted her own clone by her late aunt, it’s terrifying. After a routine monthly upload of her consciousness—stored for that inevitable transition—something goes wrong. When Con wakes up in the clinic, it’s eighteen months later. Her recent memories are missing. Her original, she’s told, is dead. If that’s true, what does that make her? The secrets of Con’s disorienting new life are buried deep. So are those of how and why she died. To uncover the truth, Con is retracing the last days she can recall, crossing paths with a detective who’s just as curious. On the run, she needs someone she can trust. Because only one thing has become clear: Con is being marked for murder—all over again.

Matthew FitzSimmons is the author of Constance (Thomas and Mercer) and the Wall Street Journal bestselling Gibson Vaughn series, which includes Origami Man, Debris Line, Cold Harbor, Poisonfeather, and The Short Drop. Born in Illinois and raised in London, he now lives in Washington, DC, where he taught English literature and theater at a private high school for more than a decade. You can visit him online at matthewfitzsimmons.com.


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In THE AMBASSADOR: Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James's 1938-1940 (St. Martin’s Press) acclaimed biographer Susan Ronald examines a controversial period in the career of America’s legendary political dynasty founder. Meticulously researched Ronald gained access to many newly available sources and reveals the truth about Joseph P. Kennedy's tenure as Ambassador to Great Britain on the eve of World War II.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born and raised in the United States, Susan Ronald is a British-American biographer and historian of eight books, including Conde Nast, A Dangerous Woman, Hitler’s Art Thief, and Heretic Queen. She lives in rural England with her writer husband. Visit her website: http://susanronald.com


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When Jeff Newcastle meets Dara, a beautiful Belarusian girl, on the first day of poetry class at UCLA, he imagines he’s stumbled onto the perfect college romance. Unfortunately, his fixation on Dara’s beauty prevents him from seeing the truth about her tragic life.

Doubting a normal relationship could ever be possible, Dara pulls some mysterious strings to redirect Jeff’s affection toward Carey, a sweet and kindhearted coed in Jeff’s circle of friends.

Jeff’s romance with Carey blossoms steadily until he’s awakened by a late-night phone call and summoned by a man’s voice to a large estate in the Hollywood Hills. It is here where Jeff finds that a bruised and bloodied Dara has locked herself in an upstairs bathroom.

Jeff does his best to pull Dara immediately out of danger, but he soon realizes it is only the beginning of his problems. Jeff must find a way to save Dara without falling deeper into her chaotic world or sacrificing his budding relationship with Carey.

About Tom Flynn:

Tom Flynn lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

He spent his early twenties as an aspiring playwright putting up shows on small stages around Los Angeles. The responsibility of adulthood came calling and he spent the next two decades building his career in the tech industry, but he just couldn't shake the writing bug. So here we are today.

His influences are Tennessee Williams, Sandra Cisneros, and Haruki Murakami.

A Girl Named Dara is his first novel. Sawtelle Gemini, his second novel, is scheduled for publication in Spring 2022.


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ABOUT THE BOOK

There have been other biographies of Roger Federer, but never one with this kind of access to the man himself, his support team, and the most prominent figures in the game, including such rivals as Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Roddick. In THE MASTER, New York Times correspondent Christopher Clarey sits down with Federer and those closest to him to tell the story of the greatest player in men's tennis.

Roger Federer has often made it look astonishingly easy through the decades: carving backhands, gliding to forehands, leaping for overheads and, in his most gravity-defying act, remaining high on a pedestal in a world of sports rightfully flooded with cynicism. But his path from temperamental, bleach-blond teenager with dubious style sense to one of the greatest, most self-possessed and elegant of competitors has been a long-running act of will, not destiny. He not only had a great gift. He had grit.

Christopher Clarey, one of the top international sportswriters working today, has covered Federer since the beginning of his professional career. He was in Paris on the Suzanne Lenglen Court for Federer's first Grand Slam match and has interviewed him exclusively more than any other journalist since his rise to prominence. Here, Clarey focuses on the pivotal people, places, and moments in Federer's long and rich career: reporting from South Africa, South America, the Middle East, four Grand Slam tournaments, and Federer's native Switzerland. It has been a journey like no other player's, rife with victories and a few crushing defeats, one that has redefined enduring excellence and made Federer a sentimental favorite worldwide.

THE MASTER tells the story of Federer's life and career on both an intimate and grand scale, in a way no one else could possibly do.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christopher Clarey is the tennis correspondent for the New York Times and has covered international sports for nearly thirty years for the Times and International Herald Tribune, where he was chief sports correspondent and a longtime columnist.


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Sharon Tate, Andrew Borden, Charlie Lindbergh, Black Dahlia—if you immediately recognize these murder victims, then you’re a Murderino just like Megan Collins. Her third thriller, The Family Plot(Atria), hailed “the quintessential summer thriller for true crime enthusiasts” by Apartment Therapy, follows an unconventional family obsessed with true crime—until they’re at the center of one.

The Lighthouse siblings were raised in a secluded Rhode Island mansion by true crime-obsessed parents, who named them after murder victims—Dahlia, Charlie, Tate, and Andy—and encouraged murder reenactments. At 26, Dahlia remains haunted by her upbringing and hasn’t been able to move beyond the disappearance of her twin brother Andy, who vanished a decade ago.

Now that her father has passed away, Dahlia returns to the house she’s avoided for years, along with Charlie and Tate. But the family makes a gruesome discovery: buried in their father’s plot is another body—Andy’s, his skull split open with an ax, just like his namesake. As Dahlia grapples with her own grief and horror, she realizes that her eccentric family, and the mansion itself, may hold the answers to what happened to her twin.

Megan Collins is the author of The Family Plot, Behind the Red Door,and The Winter Sister. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. She has taught creative writing at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts and Central Connecticut State University, and she is the managing editor of 3Elements Review. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work has appeared in many print and online journals, including Off the Coast, Spillway, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and Rattle. She lives in Connecticut.


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There are two New Orleans: the glamorous party city that tourists see and the day-to-day reality of the heavily segregated Black neighborhoods outside the French Quarter. That more real New Orleans is defined by economic inequality, street violence, drugs, and institutional racism. For the young people born and raised there, it is the land of no opportunity—indeed, many struggle just to survive to adulthood.

One of the few paths to success for teenage boys is football, which offers a way out with the promise of college scholarships and the possibility of a lucrative pro career. But it is too easy for even the most talented high school players to get off track when faced with the fraught daily reality of life. It takes a special person to guide these young men away from preordained failure and toward success—and even to keep them alive. In Algiers, on the West Bank of the Mississippi River, that person is Edna Karr High School coach Brice Brown.

Award-winning sportswriter Kent Babb first told the inspiring story of Brice Brown in the Washington Post. Now, in ACROSS THE RIVER: Life, Death, and Football in an American City (HarperOne), Babb goes deeper, widening the narrative with intimate portraits of Brown’s players, staff, and surroundings in an ever-tested community. Blending aspects of such disparate classics as Friday Night Lights, The Yellow House, and Ghettoside, Babb’s accomplished multi-character narrative illuminates many lives and captures the pulse of New Orleans in all its turbulence, complexity, and defiance.

About the Author

Kent Babb covers sports for the Washington Post and is the author of Not a Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson, which in 2016 was shortlisted for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. Babb’s journalism has received national praise; he has won more than a dozen awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors, and his work has been featured three times in the Best American Sportswriting series. He lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter.


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In North by Shakespeare, Michael Blanding presents the twinning narratives of rogue scholar Dennis McCarthy, called “the Steve Jobs of the Shakespeare community,” and Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier whom McCarthy believes to be the previously undiscovered source for Shakespeare’s plays.

For the last fifteen years, Dennis McCarthy has obsessively pursued the true source of Shakespeare’s works—with fascinating results. Using plagiarism software, he has found direct links between Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and other plays and Thomas North’s published and unpublished writings—as well as Shakespearean plotlines seemingly lifted straight from North’s colorful life.

McCarthy’s wholly original conclusion is this: Shakespeare wrote the plays, but he adapted them from source plays written by North decades before—many of them penned on behalf of North’s patron, Robert Dudley, a longtime suitor to Queen Elizabeth. That bold theory answers many lingering questions about the Bard with compelling new evidence, including a newly unearthed journal of North’s travels through France and Italy, filled with locations and details appearing in Shakespeare’s plays.

North by Shakespearealternates between the dramatic life of Thomas North, the intrigues of the Tudor court, the rivalries of English Renaissance theatre, and McCarthy’s attempts to air his provocative ideas in the clubby world of Shakespearean scholarship. Through it all, Blanding employs his keen journalistic eye to craft a highly readable drama, upending our understanding of the beloved playwright and his “singular genius.”

Michael Blandingis a Boston-based investigative journalist, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Wired, Slate, the Boston Globe Magazine, Bostonmagazine, and other publications. He is the author of The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps (2014), which was a New York Times bestseller and an NPR Book of the Year, and The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World’s Favorite Soft Drink (2010). A former journalism fellow at Brandeis University and Harvard Law School, he has taught feature writing at Tufts University, Emerson College, and GrubStreet Writers.


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When 29-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk driving accident she caused, she swallows her pride and goes home to her family in New York. But it’s not easy. She deserted them all—and her high school sweetheart—five years before with little explanation, and they’ve got questions.

Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the east coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family’s pub business to the brink of financial ruin, the only way to protect them is to upend all of their secrets—secrets that have damaged the family for generations and will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes—and ultimately find a way forward, together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in the Bronx and raised in Manhattan, Tracey Lange comes from a large Irish family with a few secrets of its own. She headed west and graduated from the University of New Mexico before owning and operating a behavioral healthcare company with her husband for fifteen years. While writing her debut novel, We Are the Brennans, she completed the Stanford University online novel writing program. Tracey currently lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, two sons and their German Shepherd.


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Ben Coes is a NYT bestselling author of political thriller and espionage novels who draws upon his early career at the White House, and his Godfather’s experience as a Navy Seal, to write realistic books with plots that could be ripped from tomorrow’s headlines.

In Coe’s latest book, THE ISLAND (St. Martin’s Press), America faces the worst terrorist attack since 9/11 as Iran puts a plan in motion to exact revenge for years of sanctions. Another of Iran’s goals is to neutralize the CIA’s most successful agent, Dewey Andreas.

The first pre-emptive attack against Dewey Andreas fails, but it worries the head of the CIA enough that he orders Dewey to go off the grid somewhere far away. An order Dewey refuses. But as intelligence analysts work as fast as they can to unravel the chatter on terrorist networks, Iran launches a bold strike. When the President arrives in New York to address the U.N., embedded terrorist assets blow up the bridges and tunnels that connect Manhattan to the mainland. Taking control of the island with its hidden forces, they race to the U.N. in search of Dellenbaugh and to launch an even deadlier attack that will wreak unimaginable destruction on the country itself.

Coes paints a picture of a country shocked by an attack and unable to respond, with the only hope living with CIA agent Dewey Andreas who sneaks onto the island of Manhattan to fight seemingly impossible odds.

About the Author:

BEN COES is the New York Times bestselling author of international espionage thrillers, including Trap the Devil, Eye for an Eye, Independence Day, and First Strike. Before writing his first novel, Power Down, he worked at the White House under two presidents and was a Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He lives with his wife and four children in Wellesley, Massachusetts.


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With his Quinn Colson novels, New York Times-bestselling author Ace Atkins has created one of today’s most atmospheric and critically acclaimed literary series. But Atkins delivers something far more complex and rewarding than brilliantly crafted whodunits—he delivers essential summer reading full of wit, thrills, and heart. “It’s a satisfying mix of modern Southern gothic atmosphere and thrilling action, salted with crackling humor,” according to the Tampa Bay Times. “Readers get more than a mystery, they get an entertaining lesson in the sociology of the small-town South,” wrotethe St. Louis Post-Dispatch. And with THE HEATHENS (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), the 11th installment in the series, “Atkins is writing at the top of his game” (Publishers Weekly’s starred review).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ace Atkins is the author of twenty-eight books, including eleven Quinn Colson novels, the first two of which, The Ranger and The Lost Ones, were nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel (he has a third Edgar nomination for his short story "Last Fair Deal Gone Down"). He is the author of nine New York Times-bestselling novels in the continuation of Robert B. Parker's Spenser series. A former newspaper reporter and SEC football player, Ace also writes essays and investigative pieces for several national publications including the Wall Street Journal, Outside, Garden & Gun, and Men's Journal. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his family, where he's friend to many dogs and several bartenders.


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Legendary, award-winning sportswriter Leigh Montville—former Boston Globe columnist, Sports Illustrated senior writer, and New York Times bestselling author of biographies covering the lives of athletes like Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, and Dale Earnhardt—has entertained sports fans and readers for five decades with his wry voice and razor-sharp insights.

But even after his six critically acclaimed, bestselling biographies, Sports Illustrated cover stories, and decades of Globe columns, Montville has never written an autobiographical word. That changes with TALL MEN, SHORT SHORTS: The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and A Very Young Sports Reporter (Doubleday).

Already poised to be a new classic, TALL MEN, SHORT SHORTS weaves a fine thread of Montville’s own coming-of-age as a celebrated journalist into an absolutely riveting sports story: the 1969 NBA Finals. Considered one of the best championship series in sports history—seven games, West Coast vs. East Coast, ending with a massive upset—it was a classic battle between the Los Angeles Lakers (the first iteration of the Dream Team so familiar to us today) and Boston Celtics (widely regarded as the underdogs, past their prime after an unbelievable 12-season, 10-championship run), with two of the most legendary stars of the game in Wilt Chamberlain vs. Bill Russell who, even today, rank alongside Michael Jordan and LeBron James as two of the greatest players of all time.

But beyond the breathtaking sports writing, Montville also steeps us in the nostalgia of 1969—the good and the ugly—when most professional sports teams were racially integrated but not always smoothly (see: Bill Russell’s comments about being a Black man in 1960s Boston) and sports fans didn’t quite know how to feel about it, all against the backdrop of Vietnam and an America in political, cultural, and racial turmoil, through the eyes of a very young, very green New England sportswriter.

With lively and colorful coverage of the classic series, an epic cast of characters, Montville’s own charming narrative thread, and real contemporary resonance to our current political and racial tensions—exploding on and off the court, field, and pitch—TALL MEN, SHORT SHORTS will delight basketball fans old and new.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Three-time New York Times bestselling author Leigh Montville is a former columnist at The Boston Globe and former senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He is the author of Sting Like A Bee, Evel, The Mysterious Montague, The Big Bam, Ted Williams, At the Altar of Speed, Manute, and Why Not Us? He lives in Boston.


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Michelle Seiler Tucker and Sharon Lechter, authors of EXIT RICH share how to build sustainable, scalable and when you are ready- sellable business and everything they learned along the way.

Michelle is the Founder and CEO of Seiler Tucker Incorporated, an M&A firm that has sold over a thousand businesses. Sharon is the CEO of Pay Your Family First and she co-authored the international bestseller Rich Dad Poor Dad. Steve Forbes calls EXIT RICH a "goldmine for entrepreneurs."

Sharon Lechter is an entrepreneur, author, philanthropist, international speaker, and Chartered Global Management Accountant. With a 35 year career as a licensed CPA and a life-long education advocate, she is the founder and CEO of Pay Your Family First, a financial education organization. Regarded as a global expert on financial literacy, Sharon has served as a national spokeswoman and Presidential Adviser on the topic for two US Presidents.

Sharon co-authored the international bestseller Rich Dad Poor Dad and has released 14 other books in the Rich Dad series. Over 10 years as co-Founder and CEO, she led the Rich Dad Company and brand into an international powerhouse.

Michelle Seiler Tucker is the author of EXIT RICH: The 6 P Method to Sell Your Business for Huge Profit and the Founder and CEO of Seiler Tucker Incorporated. She has sold hundreds of businesses to date and currently owns and operates several successful businesses. She is a leading authority on buying, selling, and improving businesses, as well as increasing business revenue streams. She often posts about these topics on the company’s business blog.

A formidable force in her industry, Michelle closes 98% of all offers she writes and, on average, obtains a 20 to 40% higher selling price for her clients. Her remarkable track record proves her persistence and dedication to creating win-win situations for both her buyers and sellers. Michelle is also the bestselling author of Think & Grow Rich Today and Sell Your Business for More Than it’s Worth, has appeared in Forbes, Inc., CNBC, and Fox Business and even started her own podcast called Exit Rich. She has also been a “celebrity judge” on “Pitch Tank” alongside Steve Forbes and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey. She lives in New Orleans.


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Sandra Brown has written masterful romantic suspense novels for decades—72 New York Times bestsellers with more than 80 million copies in print worldwide in 34 languages. In BLIND TIGER (2021), Sandra returns to historical fiction with one of her best books ever. The year 1920 comes in with a roar in this rousing story where Prohibition is the new law of the land, but murder, mayhem, lust, and greed are already institutions in the Moonshine Capitol of Texas. And it just so happens that “blind tiger” is another name for a speakeasy.

The social and cultural landscape of the 1920s was strikingly similar to today: Americans were trying to recover from the Spanish Flu, a global pandemic that claimed the lives of millions, and a coordinated women’s movement resulted in the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, finally granting women the right to vote. These parallels between the past and present have inspired Sandra Brown to write an unforgettable romance between a young widow and an enigmatic drifter, a mystery spawned from a shocking disappearance and a murder that sets the whole town on edge.

Thatcher Hutton, a war-weary soldier on the way back to his cowboy life, jumps from a moving freight train to avoid trouble, but lands in more than he bargained for. On the day he arrives in Foley, Texas, a local woman goes missing. Thatcher, the only stranger in town, is suspected of her abduction, and worse. Standing between him and exoneration are a corrupt mayor, a crooked sheriff, a notorious cathouse madam, a sly bootlegger, feuding moonshiners, and a young widow whose soft features conceal an iron will.

What was supposed to be a fresh start for Laurel Plummer turns to tragedy. Left destitute but determined to dictate her own future, Laurel plunges into the lucrative regional industry, much to the dislike of the good ol’ boys, who have ruled supreme. Her success quickly makes her a target for cutthroat competitors, whose only code of law is reprisal. As violence erupts, Laurel and—now deputy—Thatcher find themselves on opposite sides of a moonshine war, where blood flows as freely as whiskey.


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In 1949, Hadassah Lieberman and her family immigrated from the Czech Republic to the United States. She went on to earn a BA from Boston University in government and dramatics and an MA in international relations and American government from Northeastern University. She built a career devoted largely to public health that has included positions at Lehman Brothers, Pfizer, and the National Research Council. After her first marriage ended in divorce, she married Joe Lieberman, a US senator from Connecticut who was the Democratic nominee for vice president with Al Gore and would go on to run for president.

In Hadassah, Lieberman shares the story of her extraordinary life: from her family’s experience in Eastern Europe to their move to Gardner, Massachusetts; forging her career; experiencing divorce; and, following her remarriage, her life on the national political stage. By offering insight into her identity as an immigrant, an American Jew, and a working mother, Lieberman’s memoir speaks to many of the major issues of our time, from immigration to anti-Semitism to gender politics. With an introduction by Joe Lieberman and an afterword by Megan McCain, it’s a true American story.

Hadassah Lieberman has had a rewarding career dedicated to health care issues, assisting nonprofit organizations, improving educational standards, and promoting international understanding, with a particular focus on global women’s health.


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Do you ever feel like you’re doing more than your fair share of chores at home, that no one else sees the dishes piling up or remembers the school bake sale? That kind of “mom rage” is the fuel for Chandler Baker’s sharply observed, darkly funny, and deeply suspenseful follow-up to her New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon book club pick Whisper Network: THE HUSBANDS, “[a] delightful and furious take on Stepford Wives” (CrimeReads).

Just ahead of publication, MGM announced the acquisition of the film rights, with Kristen Wiig attached to star. The novel has also been hotly anticipated by Newsweek, The New York Post, LitHub, and author Riley Sager (Survive the Night), who named THE HUSBANDS one of his Most Anticipated summer thrillers over at Parade.

Baker was inspired to write the story, in part, by the statistic that women still do on average almost twice as much unpaid labor as men. It follows Nora Spangler, stressed-out mom of one with another on the way, a woman who is vying to make partner at the law firm where she works and not getting nearly enough help from her husband to truly have it all. When the couple tours a potential new home at suburban housing development Dynasty Ranch, Nora begins to notice that the neighbors all have husbands who are willing to do more than their fair share, and a secret that might just be worth killing for.

Chandler Baker lives in Austin with her husband and two small children where she works as a full-time writer and occasionally dabbles in her previous career of corporate law. She is the author of several young adult novels and her adult debut, Whisper Network, was a New York Timesbestseller and a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick.


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Nelle and Evan Pereira were thrilled to close on their “forever home,” a spacious paradise nestled against a state forest in Massachusetts. Three months later, on a brisk Saturday morning, their peace is destroyed when an intruder captures Nelle home by herself. Quickly overpowered by the aggressive stranger, she’s forced down to the cold, musty basement where he ties her to a chair. The intruder has a singular, if unusual, demand: he wants her to make a phone call. One that Nelle isn’t confident she can make, even though her life depends on it. Desperate to see herself and her husband to safety, Nelle doesn’t yet realize this was no chance encounter—it was a carefully planned attack. With no one to hear them scream, their secluded home feels horrifyingly isolated. And before this long day is through, Nelle and Evan, who share a dangerous secret, will bring a violent reckoning down upon all of them. 

BRACKEN MACLEOD is the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award nominated author of the novels Mountain Home, Come to Dust, and Stranded and two collections of short fiction, 13 Views of the Suicide Woods and White Knight and Other Pawns. He has worked as a trial attorney, philosophy instructor, and martial arts teacher. He lives in New England with his wife and son.


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About BATH HAUS:

P.J. Vernon’s BATH HAUS (Doubleday) opens with Oliver as he tentatively gathers the courage to enter a gay DC Bath Haus while his partner is out of town. A recovering addict, Oliver has now settled into a much more subdued way of life with Nathan, a wealthy surgeon with even wealthier parents. But while Nathan is away on business, Oliver finds himself pulled towards this exciting escape. However, his Bath Haus visit becomes more thrilling than he intended when he enters a private room with a stranger and ends up fleeing for his life.

This is only the beginning of the lies and a roller coaster of OMG moments to come in this one-of-a-kind ride. Vernon has combined all the best features of a typical psychological thriller and added a ridiculously endearing gay couple at the forefront. Oliver and Nathan, are the charming couple that seem to have it all behind the doors of their glamorous Washington, DC abode. BATH HAUS will have readers questioning every engaging character they come across, only to be shocked by the final page.

About the Author:

P. J. VERNON was born in South Carolina. His first book, When You Find Me, was published in 2018. He lives in Calgary with his partner and two wily dogs.


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Rachel Klein is sacked from her job at the White House after she sends an email criticizing Donald Trump. As she is escorted off the premises, she is hit by a speeding car, driven by what the press will discreetly call “a personal friend of the President.” Does that explain the flowers, the get-well wishes at a press briefing, the hush money offered by a lawyer at her hospital bedside? Rachel’s recovery is soothed by comically doting parents, matchmaking roommates, a new job as aide to a journalist whose books aim to defame the President, and unexpected love at the local wine store. But secrets leak, and Rachel’s newfound happiness has to make room for more than a little chaos. Will she bring down the President? Or will he manage to do that all by himself? Rachel to the Rescue is a mischievous political satire, with a delightful cast of characters, from one of America’s funniest novelists. ELINOR LIPMAN was born in Massachusetts and is the author of more than a dozen novels. Her first one, Then She Found Me, was published in 1990 and was adapted into a film starring Helen Hunt, Bette Midler, and Colin Firth. She won the New England Book Award in 2001, and her novel My Latest Grievance won the Paterson Fiction Prize. She lives in Manhattan, as well as in upstate New York.

ELINOR LIPMAN is the award-winning author of over a dozen novels, including The View from Penthouse B and The Inn at Lake Devine; one essay collection, I Can't Complain; and Tweet Land of Liberty: Irreverent Rhymes from the Political Circus. She lives in New York City.


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About THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN:

In THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN, Belle da Costa Greene is given the opportunity of a lifetime, to be the personal librarian to prominent financier and banker John Pierpont Morgan. The newly built Pierpont Morgan Library is hers to curate, and she soon becomes a fixture in the art world and J.P. Morgan’s personal confidant. With impeccable taste, shrewd negotiation skills, and an unparalleled fashion sense, Belle takes New York City by storm and helps Morgan build a world-class collection.

All the while, Belle is hiding a secret that has the power to destroy the reputation she worked so hard to forge—a secret that would bar her from the very institution she ran. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener, daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. In order to protect herself from post-Civil War society, which was still gripped by rampant racism, she abandons her name and fabricates a white identity that will allow her to access the opportunities she deserves.

But as she gets closer to J.P. Morgan, experiences her first romance with a fellow curator, and builds the Morgan Library to international prominence, Belle finds herself torn between her desire for success and her yearning to be herself. Surrounded by the expectations of others and the harsh realities of American society, Belle must decide, once and for all, who she will be.

www.authormariebenedict.com

www.victoriachristophermurray.com

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years' experience as a litigator. A graduate of Boston College and the Boston University School of Law, she is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, Carnegie's Maid, The Other Einstein, and Lady Clementine. All have been translatedinto multiple languages. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.

Victoria Christopher Murray is an acclaimed author with more than one million books in print. She has written more than twenty novels, including Stand Your Ground, an NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Fiction and a Library Journal Best Book of the Year. She holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.


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Harry M. Rosenfeld died this week at his home in Slingerlands, NY. He was a child refugee from Nazi Germany. Harry was a key figure in the Washington Post's coverage of The Watergate break in and scandal as managing editor. He even hired Bob Woodward. He had a 50 year career in the newspaper business including working at The New York Herald Tribune, and being the top editor of two Albany NY newspapers. His philosophy on journalism from his 2013 memoir was "holding to account the accountable, the more powerful the better.” 

I interviewed Harry shortly after he released his book "Battling Editor: The Albany Years" in 2019. 


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Once an essential part of nautical navigation and commerce, the world's lighthouses have become historical relics of days past, their primary function now replaced by modern technology. Yet these magnificent structures continue to fascinate us, not only for their intrinsic beauty, but also as monuments to our shared history, and as symbols of hope and salvation to those cast adrift on the stormy seas of life. From the mid-eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries, the waterways of coastal Georgia from the St. Marys River in the south to the Savannah River in the north were an integral part of the state's economy, vital to the trade in cotton, rice, timber, naval stores, and other products shipped to ports in America and around the world. Georgia's barrier islands are today the site of five existing lighthouses, each with its own unique style, history, and role in events over the past decades and centuries. In addition, focusing on these beacons, LIGHTHOUSES OF THE GEORGIA COAST reviews the basics of lighthouse design and construction, the role, lore and legacy of lighthouse keepers, the significance of lighthouses as strategic structures during the turbulent days of the Civil War, and more. Richly illustrated with both contemporary and historical photos, the reader or visitor will gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of Georgia's lighthouses and of similar structures on coasts and waterways around the world.

William Rawlings William Rawlings was born, raised, and lives in Sandersville, Georgia, home to his family for more than two centuries. He was educated at Emory, Tulane, and Johns Hopkins Universities. A prolific author of "Southern stories," LIGHTHOUSES OF THE GEORGIA COAST is his eleventh book, and fifth work of nonfiction.


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A sweeping memoir of American politics and history from Chris Matthews, New York Times bestselling author and former host of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews.

In This Country, Chris Matthews offers a panoramic portrait of post–World War II America through the story of his remarkable life and career. It is a story of risk and adventure, of self-reliance and service, of loyalty and friendship. It is a story driven by an abiding faith in our country.

Chris Matthews

Chris Matthews is a visiting professor at Fulbright University, Vietnam. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit; Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero; Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked; Kennedy & Nixon; and Hardball. For twenty years he anchored Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC.


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About THE LOST GIRLS:

It's been more than twenty years since Marti Reese's sister, Maggie, disappeared. Only eight-years-old at the time, Marti can't remember what happened, just that Maggie got into a car and never returned. After years of grief and countless false leads, Marti is coping as best she can: abandoning her marriage, drinking to forget, and documenting her never-ending search via a true-crime podcast. But when the podcast becomes an unexpected hit and Marti thinks she's finally ready to put it all behind her, a mysterious woman calls with new information that could lead her down a dangerous path.

For years, Ava Vreeland has been fighting to overturn her brother's murder conviction. After finding strange similarities between the two cases, Ava is certain there's a connection between the murder and Maggie's disappearance, one that could prove her brother's innocence. Together, Marti and Ava embark on a quest for the truth, but the more Marti digs, the more she's shaken by the answers she might find, and what it is she's even searching for. . .

www.jessica-chiarella.com

Instagram: @jess_chiarella

Facebook: @jesschiarella

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jessica Chiarella is the author of And Again. She holds an MA in writing and publishing from DePaul University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Riverside. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.


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In the 1950s, America enjoyed massive growth and affluence, and no companies contributed more to its success than automakers. They were the biggest and best businesses in the world, their leadership revered, their methods imitated, and their brands synonymous with the nation’s aspirations. But by the end of the 1960s, Detroit’s profits had evaporated and its famed executives had become symbols of greed, arrogance, and incompetence. And no company suffered this reversal more than General Motors, which found itself the main target of a Senate hearing on auto safety that publicly humiliated its leadership and shattered its reputation.

In The Sack of Detroit, Kenneth Whyte recounts the epic rise and unnecessary fall of America’s most important industry. At the center of his absorbing narrative are the titans of the automotive world but also the crusaders of safety, including Ralph Nader and a group of senators including Bobby Kennedy. Their collision left Detroit in a ditch, launched a new era of consumer advocacy and government regulation, and contributed significantly to the decline of American enterprise. This is a vivid story of politics, business, and a sudden, seismic shift in American priorities that is still felt today.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR KENNETH WHYTE is the author of Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst, a Washington Post and Toronto Globe and Mail Book of the Year, and a nominee for four major Canadian book awards. He is a publishing and telecommunications executive and chairman of the Donner Canadian Foundation. He was formerly editor in chief of Maclean’s magazine, editor of the monthly Saturday Night magazine, and founding editor of the National Post. He lives in Toronto.


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Of the 11 World Series titles the St. Louis Cardinals have won in their formidable history, 2011's victory stands out as something different, something magical. It was the work of a team that seemingly had no business even playing in October yet one that stared down defeat over and over again, refusing to back down until the trophy was theirs. In the new book 11 in '11: A Hometown Hero, La Russa's Last Ride in Red, and a Miracle World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals, St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Benjamin Hochman offers on-the-ground perspective as he brings to life a cast of characters including Albert Pujols in his final year as a Card, team ace Chris Carpenter, Yadier Molina showing his might both behind and at the plate, and of course the unlikely hero David Freese.

11 in '11: A Hometown Hero, La Russa's Last Ride in Red, and a Miracle World Series for the St. Louis Cardinals is a thoroughly reported chronicle of an unparalleled season, packed with interviews with key players, team executives, broadcasters, and more.


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Female-driven historical novels are having their moment in popular culture, though these books have long been darlings of the media and shelf staples for legions of dedicated readers. This summer, William Morrow proud to publish a sophisticated, sumptuous new entry in buzz-worthy fiction: THE GODMOTHERS by Camille Aubray (William Morrow) On the heels of her hardcover debut, Cooking for Picasso (2016), (an enduring book club favorite, an Indie Next Reading Groups List selection, and widely reviewed, it was praised by The Washington Post as "a colorful family saga"), and already named a must-read book of the spring & summer by Veranda Magazine and BuzzFeed, THE GODMOTHERS poises Camille Aubray to become a household name of top-tier and timeless historical fiction. Set primarily against the backdrop of 1940s Greenwich Village, this is a sweeping, intimate portrait of a New York family and the resolute women who safeguard its best interests.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Camille Aubray is the author of the novel Cooking for Picasso, chosen for People Magazine’s Picks of the Best New Books, and the Indie Next Reading Groups List. Aubray was an Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship winner and a writer-in-residence at the Karolyi Foundation in the South of France. She was also a staff writer for the daytime dramas One Life to Live and Capitol. Aubray studied writing with her mentor Margaret Atwood at Humber College in Toronto, and was a finalist for the Pushcart Press Editors’ Book Award and the Eugene


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ABOUT THE BOOK:

Set against a backdrop of 1950s Cape Cod, New York City, and Mexico, Herrera’s poignant memoir is the perfect summer read. Herrera is a critically acclaimed biographer, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and now turns her biographer’s eye to her own family. UPPER BOHEMIA peels back the layers of a seemingly idyllic, artistic childhood in to explore the complexities of living with unstable, narcissistic parents.

For Herrera’s parents, both painters, following their artistic inclinations was more important than looking after their children. Her parents each married five times. When Herrera was only three years old, her parents separated. They saw their father only during summers on the Cape, when they and the other neighborhood children would be left to their own devices by parents who were busy painting, writing, or composing music. These adults inhabited a world that Herrera’s mother called “upper bohemia,” a milieu of people born to privilege who chose to focus on the life of the mind. Her parents’ friends included such literary and artistic heavyweights as artist Max Ernst, writers Edmund Wilson and Mary McCarthy, architect Marcel Breuer, and collector Peggy Guggenheim.

On the surface, Herrera’s childhood was idyllic and surreal. But underneath, the pain of being a parent’s afterthought was acute. Her unique upbringing was expanded by art and by a reverence for nature, but her early years were also marred by abuse and by absent, irresponsible adults. Exquisitely written and unflinchingly honest, UPPER BOHEMIA is ultimately a story of resilience and redemption.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Hayden Herrera is an art historian and the author of biographies of Frida Kahlo, Arshile Gorky, Mary Frank, Isamu Noguchi, and Henri Matisse. Her biography of Gorky was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and her biography of Noguchi won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She lives in New York City and Cape Cod.


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For the past twenty years, Liv and Eliot Goldenhorn have run In Love in New York, Brooklyn’s beloved wedding-planning business. When Eliot dies unexpectedly, he even more unexpectedly leaves half of the business to his younger, blonder girlfriend, Savannah. Liv and Savannah are not a match made in heaven, to say the least. But what starts as a personal and professional nightmare transforms into something even savvy, cynical Liv Goldenhorn couldn’t begin to imagine.

It Had to Be You cleverly unites Liv, Savannah, and couples as diverse and unique as New York City itself, in a joyous Love-Actually-style braided narrative. The result is a smart, modern, utterly charming love story that truly speaks to our times.

Georgia Clark is a novelist and performer. She's the author of It Had To Be You, The Regulars, The Bucket List, and others. She’s also the host and founder of the popular storytelling night, Generation Women. A native Australian, she lives in Brooklyn with her hot wife and a fridge full of cheese.


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From the best-selling author of One Minute to Midnight: a riveting account of the crucial days, hours, and moments when the Watergate conspiracy consumed, and ultimately toppled, a president.

In January 1973, Richard Nixon had just been inaugurated after winning re-election in a historic landslide. He enjoyed an almost 70 percent approval rating. But by April 1973, his presidency had fallen apart as the Watergate scandal metastasized into what White House counsel John Dean called “a full-blown cancer.” King Richard is the intimate, utterly absorbing narrative of the tension-packed hundred days when the Watergate conspiracy unraveled as the burglars and their handlers turned on one another, exposing the crimes of a vengeful president.

Drawing on thousands of hours of newly-released taped recordings, Michael Dobbs takes us into the heart of the conspiracy, recreating these traumatic events in cinematic detail. He captures the growing paranoia of the principal players and their desperate attempts to deflect blame as the noose tightens around them. We eavesdrop on Nixon plotting with his aides, raging at his enemies, while also finding time for affectionate moments with his family. The result is an unprecedentedly vivid, close-up portrait of a president facing his greatest crisis.

Central to the spellbinding drama is the tortured personality of Nixon himself, a man whose strengths, particularly his determination to win at all costs, become his fatal flaws. Rising from poverty to become the most powerful man in the world, he commits terrible errors of judgment that lead to his public disgrace. He makes himself—and then destroys himself.

Structured like a classical tragedy with a uniquely American twist, King Richard is an epic, deeply human story of ambition, power, and betrayal.

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR...

MICHAEL DOBBS was born and educated in Britain, but is now a U.S. citizen. He was a long-time reporter for The Washington Post, covering the collapse of Communism as a foreign correspondent. He has taught at leading American universities, including Princeton, the University of Michigan, and Georgetown. His previous books include the best-selling One Minute to Midnight on the Cuban missile crisis, which was part of an acclaimed Cold War trilogy. He lives outside Washington, D.C.


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About BLUSH:

BLUSH places us in the lush vineyards of the Hollander Estates winery, which has existed as the North Fork of Long Island's premier destination for lavish parties and romantic day trips for decades. Now the Hollander family fortunes have suffered, and as matriarch Vivian Hollander prepares for the arrival of her daughter and granddaughter for their annual summer reunion, she fears it might be their last. Worse, selling the family legacy to strangers might expose the dark secret she's harbored for thirty-five years....

Visits to the winery have been bittersweet for Leah Hollander Bailey ever since her father refused to let her take her place in the family business. Now a successful Manhattan cheese-shop owner, Leah loves the life she's built with her husband and daughter--but with her store, and her marriage, at a crossroads, she can't help but view this year's pilgrimage home as a sorely needed escape.

College senior Sadie Bailey has a thesis to write, and the towering shelves of the estate’s library offer endless academic inspiration. But when Sadie discovers evidence that her proper Grandma Vivian once ran a book club dedicated to the scandalous women's novels of decades past, the shockingly outrageous tomes give her new insight into her family's glory days.

Resurrecting the "trashy" book club begins as the distraction all three women need. But as they battle to save their birthright and heal old wounds, they just might find that the pages contain everything they need to know about how to fight for what they want--and for the life, and love, they deserve.

www.jamiebrenner.com

Instagram: @jamiebrennerwrites

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jamie Brenner is the author of five novels, including The Forever Summer and The Wedding Sisters. She grew up in suburban Philadelphia on a steady diet of Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz novels, and later moved to New York City to live like the heroines of her favorite books. Jamie divides her time between New York City, Philadelphia, and Provincetown.


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As the strength and conditioning coach for the Yankees for parts of three decades, Jeff Mangold was firmly embedded in building the dynasty of the 1990s and 2000s. Mangold had a front-row seat to the daily drama of Steinbrenner's revolving door of managers—Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, and Lou Piniella—during his first stint with the team in the 1980s. Then, when he returned to the Yankees in 1998, he joined a juggernaut of a team and was tasked with maintaining the health of a star-studded roster including Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera.

Yankees fans will not want to miss Power and Pinstripes: My Years Training the New York Yankees, which gives readers a unique perspective on the franchise during one of baseball's most exciting and controversial eras.

About the Author:

Jeff Mangold served as the head strength and conditioning coach for the New York Yankees from 1984 to 1988 and from 1998 to 2006. During his tenure, the Bronx Bombers won nine straight American League East titles, appeared in five World Series, and won three World Series championships in 1998, 1999, and 2000.

Peter Botte has been writing about New York sports for over 30 years, covering the Yankees, Knicks, and Islanders. He currently writes for the New York Post. He is the author of The Big 50: The Men and Moments That Made the New York Yankees, published by Triumph Books in April 2020.


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THE DAMAGE from lawyer turned novelist Caitlin Wahrer is an edgy, propulsive read about a small-town family pushed to the brink questions what we will do in the name of love and blood.

Tony has always looked out for his younger brother, Nick. So when he’s called to the hospital bed where Nick is lying battered and bruised after a violent sexual assault, his protective instincts flare, and a white-hot rage begins to build. As a small-town New England lawyer, Tony’s wife, Julia, has cases involving kids all the time. When Detective Rice gets assigned to this one, Julia feels they’re in good hands. Especially because she senses that Rice, too, understands how things can quickly get complicated. Very complicated.

After all, one moment Nick was having a drink with a handsome stranger; the next, he was at the center of an investigation threatening to tear not only him, but his entire family apart. And now his attacker, out on bail, is disputing Nick’s version of what happened.

As Julia tries to help her brother-in-law, she sees Tony’s desire for revenge, to fix things for Nick, getting out of control. Tony is starting to scare her. And before long, she finds herself asking; does she really know what her husband is capable of? Or of what she herself is?

About the Author: Born to two hippies in a small town in Maine, Caitlin Wahrer left the state for college but returned to attend law school and practice law, where she worked on cases involving some of the broad issues she writes about in The Damage. She lives in southern Maine with her husband. The Damage is her debut novel. Follow her online: Twitter: @CaitlinWahrer Instagram: @caitlinwahrer

Photo Credit: Justine Johnson


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Dressed in pajamas covered with stars, the little girl’s body is perfectly still, her arms folded neatly over her chest. The wildflowers decorating her hair scatter across the grass in the sharp breeze. Her lips are parted slightly, as if to whisper goodnight for the very last time…

When twelve-year-old Holly Mitchell’s fragile little body is found on the steps of a mountainside church in the small town of Denton, a doll made from pine cones clasped tightly to her chest, Detective Josie Quinn rushes to attend the scene. She knows this little girl’s angelic face, her mother had offered Josie help when she’d needed it most.

Searching the girl’s house, Josie is devastated to find that Holly’s mother is dead too, and her little sister is missing. But why has this family home been stripped of all sharp objects? Re-tracing her steps, Josie finally finds a secret hiding place with Holly’s sister inside, terrified, but alive. Moments later, another doll made of twigs turns up.

Certain the killer is close by, Josie holds the little girl tight and tries to coax answers from her, but it’s clear the pile of burnt photographs and letters found in the greenhouse is her only lead. No one is safe until Josie can figure out the dangerous secret that has escaped this remote family home.

Just when Josie is finally closing in on the killer, the unthinkable happens, a tragedy that shakes her to her very core. And on the windshield of her car: a third wooden doll. Could stopping this twisted monster from taking more innocent lives come at the ultimate price for Josie?

Lisa Regan is a USA Today, Wall Street Journal bestselling author and Amazon bestselling crime novelist. She has a bachelor's degree in English and Master of Education Degree from Bloomsburg University. She is a member of Sisters In Crime, Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter. Find out more at her website: www.lisaregan.com


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As back-to-back #1 draft picks for the New York Yankees, Ron Blomberg and Thurman Munson made for an odd couple. One was a good-looking, gregarious kid from Atlanta, who cheerfully talked anyone's ear off at the slightest provocation; the other was a dumpy, grumpy dude from the Midwest rust belt who was about as fond of making idle chit-chat as he was of shaving. Despite the surface differences, the two men would form a close attachment as they ignited a youth movement with the ‘70s Yankees.

Now, more than 40 years after Munson's shocking death in a plane crash at age 32, Blomberg reflects and opens up about the beloved Yankees captain in an extraordinary memoir that reaches far beyond baseball – The Captain & Me: On and Off the Field with Thurman Munson. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Blomberg offers a fascinating, unvarnished glimpse of an incredibly tumultuous time in baseball history.

Above all, The Captain & Me is an illuminating remembrance of Munson as a player and as a person, filled with previously untold stories about his analytical-yet-hardnosed approach to baseball, as well as his kindness and generosity off the field.

About the Authors:

Ron Blomberg spent eight seasons in the majors with the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox, and was twice voted "Most Popular Person in New York" during his playing days with the Yankees. He earned a place in Cooperstown, thanks to becoming the first designated hitter to make a plate appearance in an official MLB game (he walked with the bases loaded), and he was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2004 and was elected to the New York Baseball Hall of Fame in 2021. He is the author of Designated Hebrew: The Ron Blomberg Story.

Dan Epstein is the author of the 1970s baseball histories Big Hair and Plastic Grass: Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s and Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of 1976. He writes about baseball, music and pop culture for a variety of outlets, including Rolling Stone, Revolver and the Jewish Daily Forward. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.


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In If These Walls Could Talk: New York Mets: Stories from the New York Mets Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box (Triumph Books, April 27, 2021), veteran New York Post beat writer Mike Puma combines his love for the sport with decades of experience covering the team to explore the full spectrum of Mets baseball. Puma utilizes his insider access and dogged reporting prowess to produce never-before-published stories from the most recent decades of franchise history. From Piazza and Valentine to Wright and deGrom, Puma shares fascinating insights sure to enlighten and entertain fans of all stripes.

About the Author:

Mike Puma covers the Mets for the New York Post, where he has been the team beat reporter since 2010. This is his first book.


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Jess McHugh explores the true history of thirteen of America’s most popular books, chronologically tracing their origins and influence as no one has before, in her engrossing debut book AMERICANON: An Unexpected U.S. History in Thirteen Bestselling Books (Dutton). These didactic texts—our simple dictionaries, spellers, almanacs, and how-to manuals—are unexamined touchstones for American cultures and customs that have established archetypes for the ideal American, from the self-made entrepreneur to the humble farmer.

About the Author: Jess McHugh is a writer and researcher whose work has appeared across a variety of national and international publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Nation, TIME, The Paris Review, The Guardian, The New Republic, New York Magazine's The Cut, Fortune, Village Voice, The Believer, and Lapham's Quarterly, among others. She has reported stories from four continents on a range of cultural and historical topics, from present-day Liverpool punks to the history of 1960s activists in Greenwich Village.


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The concept of patriotism has fallen on hard times. What was once a value that united Americans has become so politicized by both the left and the right that it threatens to rip apart the social fabric.

On the right, patriotism has become synonymous with nationalism and an “us versus them” worldview, while on the left it is seen as an impediment to acknowledging important ethnic, religious, or racial identities and a threat to cosmopolitan globalism.

Steven B. Smith reclaims patriotism from these extremist positions and advocates for a patriotism that is broad enough to balance loyalty to country against other loyalties. Describing how it is a matter of both the head and the heart, Smith shows how patriotism can bring the country together around the highest ideals of equality and is a central and ennobling disposition that democratic societies cannot afford to do without.

Steven B. Smith is Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science and professor of philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Modernity and Its Discontents. He lives in New Haven, CT.


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In his new book, The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution (Oxford University Press – February 2021), Kevin J. Weddle—professor of Military Theory and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College—offers the most authoritative history of the Battle of Saratoga to date, explaining with verve and clarity why events unfolded the way they did.

Kevin J. Weddle is Professor of Military Theory and Strategy at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A West Point graduate, he served in the US Army for 28 years on active duty in command and staff positions in the United States and overseas, including Operations Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom, before retiring as a colonel.


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Kompromat, the Russian term for compromising material, has become an almost unimaginably powerful weapon during the Trump era, and its impact will last far into the future.

AMERICAN KOMPROMAT is based on extended and exclusive interviews with high-level sources in the KGB, CIA and FBI, as well as lawyers at white-shoe Washington firms, associates of Jeffrey Epstein, and thousands of pages of FBI reports, police investigations, and news articles in English, Russian, and Ukrainian. A narrative offering jaw dropping context, and set in Upper East Side mansions and private Caribbean islands, gigantic yachts and private jets, AMERICAN KOMPROMAT shows that from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, Russian kompromat operations documented the darkest secrets of the most powerful people in the world and transformed those secrets into potent weapons.

Among its many revelations, AMERICAN KOMPROMAT addresses what may be the single most important unanswered question of the entire Trump era: Is Donald Trump a Russian asset?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Craig Unger is the author of six books, including the New York Times bestsellers House of Bush, House of Saud, and House of Trump, House of Putin. For fifteen years he was a contributing editor for Vanity Fair, where he covered national security, the Middle East, and other political issues. A frequent analyst on MSNBC and other broadcast outlets, he was a longtime staffer at New York Magazine, has served aseditor-in-chief of Boston magazine, and has contributed to Esquire, The New Yorker, and many other publications. He also appears frequently asanalyst on MSNBC, CNN, and other broadcast outlets. Unger has writtenabout the Trump-Russia scandal for The New Republic, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post. He is agraduate of Harvard University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Twitter: @CraigUnger | Facebook: @Craig.Unger


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About the Book:

Sera loves true crime podcasts. They make her feel empowered in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She's sure they are preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, Sera knows it's time to act. Rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts.

Sera follows the clues hidden in the episodes to an isolated ranch outside Rachel's small hometown to begin her search. She's convinced her investigation will make Rachel so proud. But the more Sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. Because Rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and she won't be the last...

Rachel did try to warn her.

About the Author

Eliza Jane Brazier is an author, screenwriter and journalist. This is her adult debut. She currently lives in Los Angeles where she is developing IF I DISAPPEAR for television. Find her online at Twitter @EJaneBrazier; Instagram @elizajanebrazier; and Facebook @ElizaJaneBrazier


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Over a century after Coco and Antoinette Chanel opened their first hat shop in Paris, Chanel is without a doubt still the most iconic fashion brand in the world. Award winning author Judithe Little has crafted a stunning historical novel that traces the struggle of the sisters as they rise from orphan hood and poverty, always knowing they were destined for something more. THE CHANEL SISTERS is told from the point of view of younger sister, Antoinette, a particularly authentic narrator who knew Coco in the intimate way only a sister can. Set from 1897 to 1921, Antoinette takes readers though the humble beginnings and ambitious rise of the sisters against the backdrop of Parisian life, as they come to create what we know today as the timeless and endlessly elegant international fashion label.

Abandoned by their family years before, Antoinette and Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel grow up in a convent under the guidance of pious nuns preparing them for simple lives as the wives of tradesmen or shopkeepers. Beneath their floorboards lives a secret stash of romantic novels and magazine cutouts that they devour by night and are all they have to keep their dreams of the future alive.

When they're finally of age, Antoinette and Coco set out together with a fierce determination to prove themselves worthy to a society that has never accepted them. Their journey propels them out of poverty and to the stylish cafés of Moulins, the dazzling performance halls of Vichy—and to a small hat shop on the rue Cambon in Paris, where a business takes hold and expands to the glamorous French resort towns. But when World War I breaks out, their lives are irrevocably changed, and the sisters must gather the courage to fashion their own places in the world, even if apart from each other.

A sweeping story of women challenging social conventions, of the longing for love and recognition, of survival, loss, and triumph, THE CHANEL SISTERS explores the genesis of what we know today as the ubiquitous brand, the enduring illusion: Chanel.

Perfect for fans of Therese Anne Fowler, Marie Benedict’s The Only Woman in the Room, and Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife, this beguiling work of historical fiction is a feminist tale for the ages.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JUDITHE LITTLE is the award-winning author of Wickwythe Hall. She earned a BA in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia and a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law. She grew up in Virginia and now lives with her husband, three teenagers, and three dogs in Houston, Texas. Find her on Instagram, @judithelittle, and on Facebook, facebook.com/judithelittle.


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David A. Andelman, longtime columnist for CNN and veteran correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News, astutely combines history and global politics in his new book, A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen in an effort to examine the present and draw lessons for the future through the prism of the past.

A Red Line in the Sand is the story of barriers – physical, diplomatic, military, and existential – that have proliferated in years across every continent and, in recent years, have reached a toxic apex in numbers and virulence. Andelman asserts that there have never been more red lines at any one point in history than today. While some of this responsibility must fall to America’s president, Donald Trump, his too often quixotic approach to international troubles should not be the only explanation for many of these pernicious divisions.

David A. Andelman is a veteran New York Times and CBS News correspondent and executive director of The Red Lines Project. He is an award-winning columnist for CNN and contributor to NBC News/Think. He has served as the editor and publisher of World Policy Journal, as an Executive Editor of Forbes, and news editor at Bloomberg. He is the author of The Peacemakers, The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism with the Count de Marenches, and A Shattered Peace: Versailles, 1919 and the Price We Pay Today. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He lives in Canadensis, Pennsylvania and Paris, France.


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Brian Wheat is far from your typical rock star. As bassist for the multi-platinum band, Tesla, he’s enjoyed the spoils of success and lived the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle to the hilt. But it came at a cost, one that took years to repair.

In this deeply honest and utterly revealing memoir, Wheat sheds light on the many challenges he faces, including bulimia, weight issues, and the crippling anxiety and depression caused by his conditions. Just like the songs his legendary band made, this is no-nonsense, blue-collar storytelling at its best. While revealing the vulnerable human behind the bass guitar, this autobiography also offers tremendous stories of life on the road, and collaborations and encounters with legendary figures like his pals in Def Leppard, David Lee Roth, Alice Cooper, and Paul McCartney. Son of a Milkman will entertain, surprise, and inspire longtime fans of this enduring band.


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Heather Chavez thought to herself “would I get out if I was alone?” as she was sitting in the car at her kid’s school when something happened that gave her pause. Should she get out and help, possibly putting herself and her child in danger—or stay safe in the car? That became the inspiration for her debut novel, No Bad Deed.

Meet Cassie Larkin. She’s a mother, a wife, and a veterinarian—and her life is about to get turned upside down. Driving home one rainy night, Cassie sees a man and woman fighting on the side of the road. After calling 911, she makes a split-second decision that will throw her sedate suburban life into chaos. Against all reason, she gets out of her minivan and tries to help the woman. When Cassie physically tries to stop the assailant, he turns on her and spits out an ominous threat: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.”

A graduate of UC Berkeley’s English literature program, Heather Chavez has worked as a newspaper reporter and editor. She lives in Santa Rosa, California, with her husband and children. No Bad Deed is her first book.


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Mussolini's War: Fascist Italy from Triumph to Collapse: 1935-1943 is a remarkable new history from John Gooch, evoking the centrality of Italy to World War II. Outlining the brief rise and triumph of the Fascists, followed by the disastrous fall of the Italian military campaign.

While staying closely aligned with Hitler, Mussolini remained carefully neutral until the summer of 1940. At that moment, with the wholly unexpected and sudden collapse of the French and British armies, Mussolini declared war on the Allies in the hope of making territorial gains in southern France and Africa. This decision proved a horrifying miscalculation, dooming Italy to its own prolonged and unwinnable war, immense casualties, and an Allied invasion in 1943 that ushered in a terrible new era for the country.

John Gooch is one of the world's leading writers on Italy and the two world wars. His books include Mussolini and His Generals and The Italian Army and the First World War. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Leeds. In 2010 the President of Italy appointed him Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarieta' Italiana. John lives in England.


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ABOUT THE BOOK:

A man wanted by two governments, Peter Ash has found a simple, low-profile life in Milwaukee, living with his girlfriend June and renovating old buildings with his friend Lewis. Staying out of trouble is the key to preserving this fragile peace . . . but when Peter spots a suspicious armed man walking into a crowded market, he knows he can't stand by and do nothing.

Peter does interrupt a crime, but it wasn't at all what he'd expected. The young gunman appeared to have one target and one mission--but when he escapes, and his victim vanishes before police arrive, it seems there is more to the encounter than meets the eye. Peter's hunch is proven correct when a powerful associate from his past appears with an interest in the crime, and an irresistible offer: if he and June solve this mystery, Peter's record will be scrubbed clean.

While Peter and Lewis trace the gunman, reporter June digs into the victim of the incident, a man whose face rings a bell in her memory. As their parallel investigations draw together, they're thrust into the path of a ruthless tech thief, an eerily cheerful assassin, a brilliant and troubled inventor, and a revolutionary technology that could wreak devastation in the wrong hands. But for Peter, even more is at stake: this investigation is his only path to a life free from the threat of prosecution or prison. Before the end, he'll have to fight harder than ever before to ensure that freedom doesn't come at too high a cost. . . .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nick Petrie is the author of five novels in the Peter Ash series, most recently The Wild One. His debut, The Drifter, won both the ITW Thriller award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel, and was a finalist for the Edgar, Anthony, and Hammett Awards. He lives in the Milwaukee area.


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About OUR ITALIAN SUMMER

Workaholic and single mother Francesca Ferrari is one step away from a nervous breakdown when her studious, straight-laced, 17-year-old daughter Allegra is caught with illicit drugs. Allegra is sick of being ignored by her uptight mother whose one true love is her work. And Francesca’s mother, Sophia, knows that they’re all in trouble. Sophia is concerned that her family is falling apart in front of her eyes, and she also can’t seem to shake the feeling that her health is failing, fast. Sophia declares that a summer in Italy might just be the heart-mending cure they all need to keep their family from ripping apart at the seams.

What comes next is an adventure of a lifetime as the three women embark on a journey they’ll never forget. Filled with funny family bonding moments (that may or may not include a tumble down the Spanish Steps), a gorgeous Italian backdrop, and more than a few moments of sparkling romantic chemistry, OUR ITALIAN SUMMER is a dazzling escape to Italy with surprises around every turn.

OUR ITALIAN SUMMER contains a touch of Probst’s signature romantic style; both new and returning readers will fall head-over-heels for the Ferrari women and their delightful yet empowering journey. Probst reminds readers to sit back, relax, and enjoy the trip—and to savor every taste of joy (and pasta, and wine, and cannoli) that life brings.

Probst’s first women’s fiction tale is loosely inspired by a trip to Italy that she took with her own female relatives several years ago. She weaves some hilarious moments from her own adventures into her storytelling in order to create a laugh-out-loud memorable novel that anyone who has ever traveled with their relatives will love.

Jennifer Probst is the New York Times bestselling author of the Billionaire Builders series, the Searching For . . . series, the Marriage to a Billionaire series, the Steele Brothers series, the Stay series, and the Sunshine Sisters series. Probst, along with her husband and two sons, calls New York’s Hudson Valley home. When she isn’t traveling to meet readers, she enjoys reading, watching “shameful reality television,” and visiting a local Hudson Valley animal shelter. Readers can follow her at JenniferProbst.com.


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About THE PROPHETS:

Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation’s harmony.

Jones fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike to tell the story of these two men; from the preacher, Amos, to the calculating slave-master, to the long line of women who surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminates in a climactic reckoning, THE PROPHETS reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.

www.sonofbaldwin.com

Twitter: @sonofbaldwin

Instagram: @thesonofbaldwin

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Jones, Jr., was born and raised in New York City. He received his BFA in creative writing with honors and MFA in fiction from Brooklyn College. He has written for numerous publications, including The New York Times, Essence, OkayAfrica, The Feminist Wire, and The Grio. He is the creator of the social-justice social media community Son of Baldwin. Jones was recently featured in T Magazine’s cover story, “Black Male Writers of Our Time.” THE PROPHETS is his debut novel.


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In AMERICAN TRAITOR Brad Taylor reveals it’s not really Hong Kong that is the end game for China—it’s Taiwan.  While the United States and the rest of the world would not tolerate an outright Chinese invasion of Taiwan, what if Taiwan were to attack China first?  What if Taiwan could be tricked through manipulation of A.I. into believing that China was mounting a full-scale invasion, and Taiwan acted pre-emptively?  Who would blame China for defending itself?  Entering a wilderness of mirrors, Series protagonist Pike Logan and the Taskforce must undertake daring reconnaissance, extraction, and killing missions at every turn while trying to adhere to the legal and moral rules that govern their conduct in the murky and deadly world they inhabit.  But one thing is certain: beyond all other considerations, Pike will never allow the killer of any member of his team to escape justice.


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Lie, Lie Again (Lake Union, paperback) by Stacy Wise “starts with a bang—a body at the bottom of a staircase,” says bestselling author BFFs Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke. Combining the dramedy of the Netflix hit, Dead to Me with the scheming of the classic Melrose PlaceLie, Lie Again is a darkly funny, fast-paced suburban drama by award-winning novelist Stacy Wise, chronicling the dangerous entanglements of three women who live in the same apartment complex – and who all have a lot to hide.

Stacy Wise is the author of Maybe Someone Like You, winner of the YARWA Athena Award in 2019, and Beyond the Stars, winner of the Athena Award in 2017.  Prior to her writing career, she worked as an elementary school teacher and in television casting on shows including Party of FiveThe X Files and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. She lives in California with her husband, four children, and three dogs.


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This week on The Speaking of Writers Podcast we remember a few of the authors that we lost this year.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark wrote forty suspense novels, four collections of short stories, a his­torical novel, a memoir, and two children’s books. With bestselling author Alafair Burke she wrote the Under Suspicion series including The Cinderella Murder, All Dressed in White, The Sleeping Beauty Killer, Every Breath You Take, and You Don’t Own Me. With her daughter Carol Higgins Clark, she coauthored five more suspense novels. More than one hundred million copies of her books are in print in the United States alone. Her books are international bestsellers. She died on January 31, 2020.

This is an interview from 2011.


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This week on The Speaking of Writers Podcast we remember a few of the authors that we lost this year.

Jim Lehrer was the author of twenty-one novels, three nonfiction books, and four plays. His work in journalism began as a newspaper reporter in Texas. He then worked for more than forty years in public television. He co-founded “The PBS NewsHour,” which he anchored for 36 years, he also moderated 12 presidential debates. Jim Lehrer died on January 23, 2020.

This is an interview I did with Jim in 2010. We discussed his new novel "Super", a historical novel set on the Super Chief luxury train in 1956.


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This week on The Speaking of Writers Podcast we remember a few of the authors that we lost this year.

Today it's The Quintessential New York journalist Pete Hamill.  Pete died on August 5, 2020. As the great columnist Mike Lupica said about Pete, "In the history of newspapers, there was never anyone whose use of the language was more elegant than his was. That voice could be full of anger, of course. He went at injustice, always, with a shout and even fury.But to the end, his country wasn’t just the borough of Brooklyn. It was the country of New York City, for which he was the poet laureate"

This is an interview I did with Pete back in 2011 for his book Tabloid City.


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In Macho Time: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of Hector Camacho, Christian Giudice brings us from Camacho’s childhood in Puerto Rico (which his mother had to flee), to his coming of age in Spanish Harlem, to his training in various hardscrabble gyms throughout New York City, to his place atop the world stage of his chosen sport (which was, of course, the toughest sport), to the nightclub parking lot in San Juan where he was shot dead at the age of fifty in a drug deal gone bad.

Along the way, we come to know Camacho via his friends, family members, and fellow fighters—including Sugar Ray Leonard—through the firsthand interviews Giudice did with them. Perhaps most notable is the access Giudice had to Hector, Jr., who was born when his father was just sixteen; the two basically grew up together. The result is a full portrait of a complex man who fought his inner demons with as much fury as he fought his competitors in the ring.

Christian Giudice is the author of Hands of Stone: The Life and Legend of Roberto Duran, which was turned into a major motion picture starring Robert De Niro; Beloved Warrior: The Rise and Fall of Alexis Arguello; and A Fire Burns Within: The Miraculous Journey of Wilfredo Gomez. Born in Haddonfield, New Jersey, he graduated from Villanova University and currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he teaches English at Harper Middle College High School.


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It’s historical fiction at its finest—and deadliest—in bestselling author Joy Jordan-Lake’s Under a Gilded Moon (Lake Union Publishing) out this holiday season. Depicting the clash of classes and cultures around the famed Vanderbilt-owned Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina, Under a Gilded Moon highlights the aspirations that drive not only those with power and wealth, but also the people who live in the shadow of the privileged.

Joy is the author of eight books, including A Tangled Mercy, a #1 Amazon bestseller and also an Editors’ Choice recipient from the Historical Novel Society; Blue Hole Back Home, which won the Christy Award for First Novel; and the children’s book A Crazy-Much Love. Raised in the foothills of the Appalachians, she spent several summers in and around Asheville, North Carolina, where the Biltmore Estate is located. She continues to love the Blue Ridge Mountains and drags friends and family there with her whenever possible. Joy holds two master’s degrees and a PhD in English and has taught literature and writing at several universities. Now living outside Nashville, she and her husband have two daughters, a son, and a ferocious ten-pound rescue pup. To learn more about the author and her work, visit joyjordanlake.com.


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The Corona Virus pandemic has turned vacation travel plans upside down for many this year. With events cancelled and concern over health risks associated with air, rail and cruise travel, many are opting for road trips as a vacation alternative. If you’re hitting the road, take a reliable companion. For more than a century National Geographic has been the first stop for savvy travelers in search of inspiration, in-depth knowledge and practical advice. The long-anticipated 2nd edition of National Geographic’s DRIVES OF A LIFETIME: 500 of the World’s Greatest Road Trips, is an invitation to get behind the wheel and experience some of the best motoring adventures around the globe. From legendary Highway 1 in California to Japan's famous Irohazaka Winding Road, DRIVES OF A LIFETIME spans the globe to reveal the best celebrated and lesser-known road trips on the planet.

Allyson Johnson is a senior editor for National Geographic books, where she publishes travel, photography, cookbooks, and illustrated reference titles, including the New York Times bestselling Blue Zones Kitchen by Dan Buettner; the top-selling 5,000 Ideas series by Joe Yogerst; NATJA award-winning 100 Dives of a Lifetime by Carrie Miller; best-selling What to Eat When by Drs. Michael Roizen and Michael Crupain; and Women: The National Geographic Image Collection. Previously she worked as a lifestyle editor at Every Day Rachael Ray magazine where she covered food, travel, and DIY. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and son.


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In FIRST PRINCIPLES: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country (Harper),Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks offers a revelatory new look at the founding fathers. Examining their educations—in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics—Ricks demonstrates how that influence would shape their ideals and the new American nation. The book is already #4 on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military for The Washington Post from 2000 through 2008 and was on the staff of the Wall Street Journal for seventeen years before that. He reported on American military operations in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iraq. A member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, he is also the author of several books, including The Generals, The Gamble, Churchill & Orwell,andthe number-one New York Times bestseller Fiasco, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He wrote First Principleswhile a visiting fellow in history at Bowdoin College.


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In 2019, Jeff Lindsay introduced readers to Riley Wolfe, a master thief that targets the wealthiest 0.1 percent. Fans were ready to cheer for the newest anti-hero on the scene—and Publishers Weekly agreed, saying in a starred review, “Fans of the Ocean’s Eleven film franchise will be eager for more.” After stealing a piece of the Crown Jewels of Iran, infiltrating a top-of-its-class security system and walking away without anyone knowing the diamond was gone until it was too late, Riley truly became the thief extraordinaire. And people are paying attention. Unfortunately for Riley, too close attention.

After the exhilarating subterfuge of Just Watch Me, Lindsay ups the stakes in its thrilling sequel, FOOL ME TWICE (Dutton). About to celebrate another successful crime—this time, a stolen Faberge egg—Riley’s betrayed by his getaway pilot. He wakes up prisoner of a top-dog international arms dealer who is also a top-notch art collector, and he has an impossible crime for Riley.

About Jeff Lindsay

Jeff Lindsay is the author of the Riley Wolfe novels, and the New York Times bestselling author of the Dexter novels, which debuted in 2004 with Darkly Dreaming Dexter.


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Anyone who knows Jay Horwitz knows he loves stories, and has a wealth of them to share. As the beloved, longtime PR director for the New York Mets, he has witnessed and quietly shaped some of the most memorable moments in team history, becoming a trusted friend and mentor to generations of players, from Darryl Strawberry to Jacob deGrom. In this fascinating memoir, Horwitz tells the unlikely story of a childhood dream come true, offering an unparalleled insider's perspective on four dynamic and unpredictable decades of Mets baseball. Featuring reflections and anecdotes only Horwitz can tell, on subjects ranging from clubhouse hijinks, to the chaotic New York media scene, to navigating moments of greatness and defeat, Mr. Met is a remarkable behind-the-scenes ride that fans will not want to miss.

Jay Horwitz is Vice President of Alumni Relations and Club Historian for the New York Mets. He spent nearly four decades at the helm of the team's media relations. In 2019, he was the recipient of the annual William J. Slocum/Jack Lang Award for long and meritorious service, awarded by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.


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Broadway, one of New York’s—and the world’s—most recognizable industries, is at a standstill. With its doors closed, fans across the globe are looking for a chance to reconnect with some of their favorite stars and shows. Luckily, New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel’s second book, SINGULAR SENSATION: The Triumph of Broadway (Avid Reader Press) offers an insider’s look at some of the business’s most influential and genre-defining acts. With over 150 interviews with Broadway’s most luminary names, SINGULAR SENSATION portrays the people, money, and power that created the blockbuster shows and aesthetic spectacle that has dominated not only a couple of acres of real estate in the heart of Manhattan but also the hearts and minds of millions of people around the world.

Michael Riedel has been the theater columnist for the New York Post since 1998. New York magazine has called his column a “must-read” for the theater world. Michael began his radio career as regular on the Imus in the Morning show in 2011. In 2017 WOR, New York’s oldest and highest-rated station, asked him to cohost its morning show with well-known sportscaster Len Berman. The Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning show is the highest-rated morning radio program in the New York City area. Michael’s book Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway won the Marfield Prize for arts writing in 2015 and is widely considered to be the successor to William Goldman’s celebrated 1967 book about Broadway, The Season. A graduate of Columbia University, Michael lives in the West Village.


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New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author Lori Nelson Spielman takes readers on a journey across Italy alongside a cast of strong women out to change their own destinies—and find themselves in the process—in her glowing new novel.

Lori Nelson Spielman is a New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author whose novels have hit #1 in six different countries. Formerly a homebound teacher in an inner-city school district, she holds master’s degrees in speech pathology and guidance counseling. She lives in Michigan with her husband.


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More than thirty years after Grant’s death, biographer Scott Eyman sheds new light on the life of the Hollywood icon in CARY GRANT: A Brilliant Disguise ( Simon & Schuster), drawing on Grant’s own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends.

About the author

Scott Eyman was formerly the literary critic at The Palm Beach Post and is the author or coauthor of 14 books, including the bestseller John Wayne and (with actor Robert Wagner) the bestsellers Pieces of My Heart and You Must Remember This. Among his other books are Hank and Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart; Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille; Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer; and Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford. Eyman also writes book reviews for The Wall Street Journal, and has written for The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as practically every film magazine extinct or still extant. He and his wife, Lynn, live in West Palm Beach.


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About WHERE I COME FROM:

From the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All Over but the Shoutin' and The Best Cook in the World, a collection of his irresistible columns from Southern Living and Garden & Gun

A collection of wide-ranging and endearingly personal columns by the celebrated author, newspaper columnist, and Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg, culled from his best-loved pieces in Southern Living and Garden & Gun.

From his love of Tupperware ("My Affair with Tupperware") to the decline of country music, from the legacy of Harper Lee to the metamorphosis of the pickup truck, the best way to kill fire ants, the unbridled excess of Fat Tuesday, and why any self-respecting southern man worth his salt should carry a good knife, Where I Come From is an ode to the stories and the history of the Deep South, written with tenderness, wit, and deep affection--a book that will be treasured by fans old and new.

About Rick Bragg:

RICK BRAGG is the author of eight books, including the best-selling Ava's Man and All Over but the Shoutin'. He is also a regular contributor to Garden & Gun magazine. He lives in Alabama.


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Stonewall Book Award-winning author Bill Konigsberg explores mental health and suicidal ideation in his latest groundbreaking novel in which he draws from his own experience as a young person battling mental health struggles.

In THE BRIDGE, Aaron and Tillie don't know each other, but they are both struggling with thoughts of suicide, and arrive at the George Washington Bridge at the same time, intending to jump. Aaron is a gay misfit struggling with depression and loneliness. Tillie is a Korean-American adoptee struggling to find out how she fits into her family.Told in a unique, four-part narrative structure, THE BRIDGE explores four different outcomes and their aftermath: Aaron jumps and Tillie doesn't. Tillie jumps and Aaron doesn't. They both jump. Neither of them jump. Konigsberg aims to spark a dialogue about mental health and encourage readers towards survival, hope and encouragement.

Bill Konigsberg is the author of six books for young adults, which have won awards including the Stonewall Book Award, the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor, and the Lambda Literary Award. Bill lives with his husband, Chuck, and their two Labradoodles, Mabel and Buford. Please visit him online at billkonigsberg.com and @billkonigsberg.


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With great buzz and universal acclaim, The Blondes made an indelible impression on readers and literary critics alike. To the delight of fans everywhere, Schultz is back with a riveting new novel, LITTLE THREATS, a plot-twisting whodunit with a powerful message about what time gives us and what it takes away.

Emily Schultz is the co-founder of the influential Joyland magazine and author of The Blondes, an international bestseller named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR, BookPage, and Kirkus Reviews. Schultz’s writing has appeared in Elle, Slate, Evergreen Review, Vice, Hazlitt, and Prairie Schooner. Currently a producer at the indie media company Heroic Collective, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.


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Andrew Bone takes fans back to the start and behind the scenes, showing that the path to Bryant–Denny Stadium is not always a straight and narrow one

The University of Alabama boasts one of the nation's most storied football programs, and the recruiting acumen of coaches like Bear Bryant and Nick Saban plays a major role in that. The Road to Bama is a wild ride into the competitive world of college football recruiting, revealing how many Crimson Tide players found their way to Tuscaloosa.

Andrew Bone reports on Alabama football recruiting for BamaInsider.com, part of the Rivals.com network.  Jay Barker was the starting quarterback on Alabama's 1992 national championship team. He resides in Birmingham, Alabama.


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The first full-length biography of John Steinbeck to appear in a quarter century, MAD AT THE WORLD: A Life of John Steinbeck [W. W. Norton & Company] illuminates what has made the work of the Nobel laureate an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Pulitzer Prize finalist William Souder explores Steinbeck’s long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath.

William Souder’s books include biographies of John Steinbeck, Rachel Carson (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), and John James Audubon (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize). He lives in Grant, Minnesota.


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When Kirby Smart returned to his alma mater in 2016, hopes were high that he could take Georgia football to that elusive next level. Smart wasted no time putting his mark on the Bulldogs, however, making an immediate impact on recruiting and in 2017, reaching the College Football Playoff and coming within moments of a national championship. Biding his time and crafting his philosophy as a defensive coordinator under Nick Saban, Smart waited for his opportunity to return to Georgia, turning down several coaching opportunities in the meantime. Still early in his tenure, Smart has gone on to dominate recruiting on a national scale, win the SEC, reach the national championship game, and will be attacking the college football landscape for years to come.

Seth Emerson is a staff writer for The Athletic Atlanta, covering Georgia football and athletics. He has written previously for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Albany Herald.


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In THE COLD MILLIONS (Harper)—his eagerly-awaited first novel since the #1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins—master storyteller Jess Walter turns his brilliant, chameleon-like talents to a work of historical fiction whose themes echo many of the social and political concerns we once again face in this country. A “writer who has planted himself firmly in the first rank of American authors” (Boston Globe), the National Book Award finalist here crafts a kaleidoscopic narrative of the Northwest that centers on two brothers and the struggles they face in a nation on the brink of change. The birth of the American labor movement, the last hurrah of the Robber Barons, first wave feminism, freedom of speech and the right to protest, corporate corruption, class, race—these hot button issues converge and combust in this powerful, highly entertaining tour de force.

About the Author Jess Walter is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins, the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets, the National Book Award finalist The Zero, the Edgar Award-winning Citizen Vince, Land of the Blind, the New York Times Notable Book Over Tumbled Graves, and the story collection We Live in Water. He lives in Spokane, Washington, with his family.


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A rare, behind the scenes look at the Saints over more than 14 seasons

As the city was rebuilding following Hurricane Katrina, Sean Payton arrived in 2006 as a relative unknown, a first-time NFL head coach tasked with resurrecting a New Orleans Saints team that had just finished 3-13. Two months after Payton was hired, the Saints signed a free agent quarterback who was cast aside by the San Diego Chargers: Drew Brees. Together, these two underdogs joined forces and transformed the Saints from laughingstock to juggernaut. Payton's bold play-calling proved the perfect match for Brees, who threw a league-leading and franchise record 4,418 passing yards as the Saints advanced to the NFC championship game. Three seasons later, the Saints were Super Bowl champions. Payton and Brees is the definitive account of how this dynamic duo transformed a team, a city, and the game of football.

Jeff Duncan is a columnist for The Athletic New Orleans and previously covered the Saints for the Times-Picayune. He is the author of Tales from the Saints Sideline and From Bags to Riches.


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From New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker and New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser come the highly anticipated THE MAN WHO RAN WASHINGTON: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III (Doubleday) — an unmatched case study in the acquisition, exercise, and preservation of power told through an account of one of the most significant and influential leaders in modern American government never to serve as president of the United States.

Peter Baker and Susan Glasser are longtime Washington journalists and former foreign correspondents who have written for years about the intersection of politics and the world. Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, an MSNBC political analyst and a regular panelist on Washington Week on PBS. He has covered the last four presidents for The Times and The Washington Post and won all three major awards for White House coverage. Susan Glasser is a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of the weekly “Letter from Trump’s Washington” as well as a global affairs analyst for CNN. She previously was the editor of POLITICO and founder of the award-winning POLITICO Magazine. Before that, she was executive editor of Foreign Policy magazine following a long stint at The Post, where she was assistant managing editor for national news and editor of the paper’s Outlook section.


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In his 2012 bestseller, The General vs. the President,two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist H. W. Brands provided a thrilling, personality-driven narrative of two figures whose destinies collided at an epic turning point in American history: President Truman, General MacArthur, and the emerging Cold War.

Now, the New York Times bestselling historian turns his attention to the epic struggle over slavery in THE ZEALOT AND THE EMANCIPATOR (Doubleday). With clear parallels to our current moment, Brands offers a dual portrait of John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, two men with radically different views on how moral people must respond to our democracy’s most extreme injustice: by incremental change within the system? Or by radical upheaval?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written more than a dozen biographies and histories, two of which, The First American and Traitor to His Class, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.


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Harvey Araton is one of New York’s—and the nation’s—best-known sports journalists, having covered thousands of Knicks games over the course of a long and distinguished career. But the person at the heart of OUR LAST SEASON: A Writer, a Fan, a Friendship , is Michelle Musler, a fan who was largely anonymous—except, that is, to the players,coaches, and writers who passed through Madison Square Garden. Musler held season tickets

behind the Knicks bench and missed only a few games over the course of 45 years, becoming as big a staple at the Garden as Spike Lee. She and Araton formed an extraordinary friendship during hours spent at the arena—Araton reporting on the latest matchup and Musler cheering on the team,

always in her seat and never late. Basketball is the foundation for Araton and Musler's story, but OUR LAST SEASON is a universal narrative of the bittersweet moments of transition we all experience and the special people we entrust to help us get through them.

About the Author

Harvey Araton is a longtime New York City sports journalist who worked for 25 years at The New York Times , to which he still contributes. He is the author or co-author of seven books, most recently Driving Mr. Yogi , which was a New York Times bestseller. His book When the Garden Was Eden was made into an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, which Araton co-produced. In 2017, he received the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey.


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With the release of 2018’s The Bromance Book Club, Lyssa Kay Adams established herself as an auto-buy author for romance fans. Her incisive

take on toxic masculinity and how reading romance novels can emotionally educate them also garnered attention from major national

media including the New York Times Book Review, NBC’s TODAY Show, Entertainment Weekly, Men’s Health, NPR and more. CRAZY STUPID

BROMANCE (Berkley Jove Trade Original) is the third book in Adams’ beloved series and is a prime example of the friends to- lovers set up at its best.

Lyssa Kay Adams read her first romance novel in eighth grade after swiping one from her grandmother's book shelf and was hooked forever. After a nearly 20-year career as a journalist, her dreams of writing and publishing her own HEAs came true and she now writes full-time from her home in Michigan with a pesky, fluffy K9 assistant named Domino. Learn more at www.lyssakayadams.com and connect with her online at @LyssaKayAdams.


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About HIS VERY BEST Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure—ridiculed and later revered—with a piercing intelligence, prickly intensity, and biting wit beneath the patented smile. Here is a moral exemplar for our times, a flawed but underrated president of decency and vision who was committed to telling the truth to the American people.

About the Author

Jonathan Alter is an award-winning historian, columnist and documentary filmmaker. An MSNBC political analyst and former senior editor at Newsweek, he is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies; The Promise: President Obama, Year One; and The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.


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Tragedy strikes in 1853 when President-Elect Franklin Pierce is travelling with his family to D.C. In an instant, their train derails, violently flinging passengers about its cabins. The only fatality is the Pierces’ eleven-year-old son, Bennie.

Something unspeakable invades the only haunted house residents are not permitted to leave. Only by confronting the depths of their grief and their darkest secrets can the President and First Lady hope to rid themselves—and America—from the curse that haunts the White House.

About the Author: Andrew Pyper is the internationally bestselling author of The Demonologist (2013), which won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel. His most recent novels include The Homecoming (2019), The Only Child (2017), and The Damned(2015). Three of his novels, including The Residence, are in active development for television and feature film.


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A family of five lives on a dairy farm in Maine. They put up hay and separate milk and clean the barn and wean the calves. When something unimaginable—yet somehow inevitable—occurs, they become a family of four. From that moment, guilt permeates and propels this novel. 

MEREDITH HALL is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Without a Map, which was named Best Book of the Year by Kirkusand BookSense, and was Elle’s “Readers’ Pick of the Year.” The recipient of the 2004 Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation, Ms. Hall’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and many other publications. She divides her time between Maine and California.


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Eric just wants to do his job as an EMT. He’s mostly recovered from the freak accident that put him in the hospital. There’s just one thing still bothering him—the ghosts. At least, he thinks they’re ghosts. They only seem to show up when one of his patients is close to death. In Eric’s case, “close to Death” is more than a figure of speech.

The Reaper is not thrilled about Eric’s newfound abilities. Humans aren’t even supposed to see the souls of the nearly departed. They’re certainly not supposed to talk to them.

Where did Eric get this inhuman power? Most importantly, can Death put a stop to it before bureaucracy gets involved? If they don’t solve the mystery quickly Eric might not be the only one who has to pay a price.

Emma G Rose is an author of fantasy and mythological weirdness. Her novels include Near-Life Experience (2020) and Nothings Ever Lost (2019). People who keep track of this sort of thing call her writing speculative fiction, which is like fantasy, but with fewer wizards.

All of Emma’s novels are independently published through Imperative Press Books, the publishing house she runs from her hometown of Hampden, Maine. Their goal is to help niche voices share their story and teach more writers how to publish independently.

For more info visit: https://www.emmagauthor.com/


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Since the country’s founding, Americans in power have subjugated others for personal gain, making their fortunes through slavery, plundering resources and land, fighting to prevent and destroy organized labor, and weaving inequality into the nation’s laws. In AMERICAN RULE: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People (Dutton), Jared Yates Sexton, author of the critically acclaimed The Man They Wanted Me to Be and The People Are Going To Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore, exposes shocking truths about America’s foundational myths—the stories we tell about who we are and what defines us as a nation—which color our understanding of every chapter of U.S. history.

About the Author: Jared Yates Sexton is the author of The Man They Wanted Me to Be and The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore. His political writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The New Republic, Politico, and Salon.com. Sexton is also the author of three collections of fiction and is an associate professor of creative writing at Georgia Southern University.


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In MAINLINING PHILLY: Survival, Hope and Resisting Drug Addiction, Dr. Geri-Lynn Utter, PsyD., tells her disturbing but inspirational story of growing up as the child of drug addicts. Meeting Dr. Geri-Lynn, aPhiladelphia native for the first time, it would be easy to assume she’s the product of the elite schools and glossy social life of the Mainline. But in fact, Geri-Lynn grew up in Kensington, her father and her mother both lifelong drug addicts. She saw first-hand the torment of addiction. The violence of the “life.” The despair that there could be no way out except death by overdose.

Dr. Geri-Lynn Utter is a clinical psychologist who works with individuals struggling with drug addiction and severe mental illness. She is the child of parents who suffered from drug addiction. She has also witnessed countless addicts who lived and died in her parents’ wildly dysfunctional and often criminal inner circle during her childhood in one of Philadelphia’s roughest areas. For more information, please visit https://drgerilynn.com/.


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The New York Times bestselling Ordinary People Change the World series welcomes the 21st and 22nd additions to the collection this fall: I AM ANNE FRANK and I AM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. The inception for this series, now with more than 3.5 million copies in print, came from a personal place for Brad Meltzer: he wanted to give his own children heroes of character, kindness, and compassion – he did not want his children to emulate someone simply “famous for being famous” on social media. From his love of history, Brad knew there were better heroes for his children to look up to, and he decided to write about them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brad Meltzer is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Heroes for My Son, Heroes for My Daughter, a dozen suspense novels like The Escape Artist, and non-fiction books like The First Conspiracy. He is also the host of the History Channel television shows Brad Meltzer's Decoded and Brad Meltzer's Lost History (which he used to help find the missing 9/11 flag). He is the co-creator of Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum – and of course, the inspiration for Brad. He lives in Florida with his wife and their three children.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

Christopher Eliopoulos began his illustration career at Marvel Comics, and has worked on thousands of comics, including Cosmic Commandos, Monster Mayhem, Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius, Pet Avengers, and Cow Boy, all of which he wrote and illustrated. The Yawns Are Coming!, Christopher’s first picture book as both author and illustrator, is on-sale now. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and their identical twin sons (when the boys are home from college).


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The legendary FBI criminal profiler and international bestselling author of MINDHUNTER and THE KILLER ACROSS THE TABLE returns with this timely, relevant book that goes to the heart of extremism and domestic terrorism, examining in-depth his chilling pursuit of, and eventual prison confrontation with Joseph Paul Franklin, a White Nationalist serial killer and one of the most disturbing psychopaths he has ever encountered.

Author Bio:

John Douglas, the legendary FBI criminal profiler, special agent, and veteran author of true crime books, has spent more than three decades hunting, researching, analyzing, and confronting America’s most disturbing criminals. A veteran of the United States Air Force, he has directly worked and/or had overall supervision in over 5,000 violent crime cases over the past 48 years. He is currently chairman of the board of the “Cold Case Foundation.” One of the foremost experts and investigators of criminal minds and motivations, he currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

Mark Olshaker is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author of eleven nonfiction books and five novels, including Einstein’s Brain and The Edge. His books with former FBI Special Agent and criminal profiling pioneer John Douglas, beginning with Mindhunter and, most recently, Law & Disorder, have sold millions of copies and have been translated into many languages. Mindhunter is now a dramatic series on Netflix, directed by David Fincher. He and his wife Carolyn, an attorney, live in Washington, D.C.


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Whether you know her from her million-copy and #1 New York Times bestselling phenomena Then She Was Gone or her Good Morning America book club pick The Family Upstairs, or even if you haven’t read her at all, Lisa Jewell’s INVISIBLE GIRL (Atria Books) should be your must-read suspense novel of the fall.

From her very first novel, Ralph’s Party, which was published in the States way back in 1999 and was the bestselling debut novel in her native UK that year, Lisa has consistently written stories that are “spellbinding and impossible to put down” (Minneapolis Star Tribune on The Family Upstairs) and “touching, insightful, and gripping” (Sophie Kinsella on After the Party). INVISIBLE GIRL is Lisa’s eighteenth novel, and while she has transitioned from ‘chick-lit’ mainstay to ‘queen of domestic suspense’ in the last five years, selling over 5 million copies globally at the breakneck pace of publishing one book a year, she has never sacrificed quality for quantity. Her books only seem to get better and more compelling with each word that she writes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lisa Jewell is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eighteen novels, including The Family Upstairs and Then She Was Gone, as well as Watching You and I Found You. Her novels have sold more than 4.5 million copies internationally, and her work has also been translated into twenty-five languages. Connect with her on Twitter @LisaJewellUK, on Instagram @LisaJewellUK, and on Facebook @LisaJewellOfficial.


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Over the past months, viewers have watched Clarissa Ward, CNN’s chief international correspondent, report from the Syria-Turkish border as Kurdish families fled Turkish artillery; Ukraine, where she went to the front lines of the Ukrainian army’s fight against Russian-backed separatists; from inside a Russian troll factory in Ghana; and most recently on COVID-19 vaccine human trials at the University of Oxford—while eight months pregnant, from her living room home base. With her deep empathy for those suffering and her fearless dedication to speaking truth to power, Ward is world-renowned as a conflict reporter. The recipient of multiple Peabody, Murrow, and Emmy awards, she has spent the past fifteen years reporting for four major networks and moving from one hot zone to the next, her journalism defined by this age of extremism. In her gripping new memoir, ON ALL FRONTS: The Education of a Journalist (Penguin Press), Ward tells the story of her singular career and how she has documented the violent remaking of the world from close range.

About the Author

Clarissa Ward is CNN’s chief international correspondent. In her fifteen-year career spanning Fox, CBS, and ABC, Ward has reported from front lines across the world. She has received five Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards, two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, two Edward R. Murrow Awards for distinguished journalism, honors from the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association, the 2016 David Kaplan Award from the Overseas Press Club, and the Excellence in International Reporting Award from the International Center for Journalists. She graduated with distinction from Yale University, and in 2013 received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Middlebury College in Vermont. She lives in London.


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David S. Reynolds, author of the Bancroft Prize-winning cultural biography of Walt Whitman and many other iconic works of nineteenth century American history, understands the currents in which Abraham Lincoln swam as well as anyone alive. His magisterial biography ABE: Abraham Lincoln in His Times (Penguin Press) is the product of full-body immersion into the riotous tumult of American life in the decades before the Civil War, and a framework for understanding the politics of our own divided age.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David S. Reynolds is a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography, winner of the Bancroft Prize and the Ambassador Book Award. His other books include Beneath the American Renaissance (winner of the Christian Gauss Award), John Brown, Abolitionist, and Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America. He is a regular book reviewer for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and The Wall Street Journal.


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In this breathtaking new publication, James Rollins brings together twelve thrilling stories that dig deeper into his creative stomping grounds and open vistas into new landscapes and characters. At the center of UNRESTRICTED ACCESS is the never-before-published novella "Sun Dogs.” While trekking through the Sonora desert, a gunshot thrusts Tucker and Kane into an adventure that challenges their considerable skills. The discovery of secrets known only to the native tribes of Arizona threatens to unleash an ancient force that could irreparably alter the future. It also forces Tucker to make a terrible choice that will shatter his relationship with his soul-bonded companion Kane. As these partners learn, nothing remains buried forever and old debts must be paid, no matter the cost.

About the Author:

JAMES ROLLINS is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers that have been translated into more than forty languages. His Sigma series has been lauded as one of the "top crowd pleasers" (New York Times) and one of the "hottest summer reads" (People magazine). In each novel, acclaimed for its originality, Rollins unveils unseen worlds, scientific breakthroughs, and historical secrets-and he does it all at breakneck speed and with stunning insight.


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Seldom has our free press faced so great a threat, and yet, the tension between presidents and journalists is as old as the republic itself. George Washington, upon seeing an unflattering caricature of himself in a local newspaper “got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself,” according to then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Every president since has been tested by the American media.

Since the Founding Era, almost everything about access and expectation, literacy and technology has changed, but in THE PRESIDENTS VS. THE PRESS (Dutton), acclaimed scholar and Lincoln Prize winner Harold Holzer chronicles the eternal battle between the core institutions that define the republic, revealing that the essence of this confrontation is built into the fabric of the nation.

About the Author:

Harold Holzer is the recipient of the 2015 Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize. One of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era, Holzer was appointed chairman of the US Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission by President Bill Clinton and awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush. He currently serves as the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, City University of New York.


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About Confessions on the 7:45:

Selena Murphy is commuting home from her job in the city when the train stalls out on the tracks. She strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat, and their connection is fast and easy. The woman introduces herself as Martha and confesses that she's been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When the train arrives at Selena's station, the two women part ways, presumably never to meet again. But days later, Selena's nanny disappears.

Soon Selena finds her once-perfect life upended. As she is pulled into the mystery of the missing nanny, and as the fractures in her marriage grow deeper, Selena begins to wonder, who was Martha really? But she is hardly prepared for what she'll discover.

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of eighteen novels, including CONFESSIONS ON THE 7:45. With millions of readers worldwide and books published in twenty-six languages, Unger is widely regarded as a master of suspense. Her critically acclaimed books have been voted "Best of the Year" or top picks by the Today show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, Amazon, IndieBound and others. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Travel+Leisure. She lives on the west coast of Florida with her family.


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New York Times bestselling author Tana French is that rare breed of writer who creates great excitement with

the publication of each of her crime novels. Her eighth novel and second standalone, THE SEARCHER

(Viking), has already become a standout and a critic favorite.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tana French is the author of seven previous books, including In the Woods, The Likeness, and The Witch Elm. Her novels have sold over three million copies and won numerous awards, including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity and Barry Awards, the Los Angeles Times Award for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She lives in Dublin with her family.


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Based on new archival discoveries, the first biography of a man who was at

the center of U.S. foreign policy for a generation

Few have ever enjoyed the degree of foreign-policy influence and versatility that Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. did—in the postwar era, perhaps only George Marshall, Henry Kissinger, and James Baker. Lodge, however, had the distinction of wielding that influence under presidents of both parties. For three decades, he was at the center of American foreign policy, serving as advisor to five presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to Gerald Ford, and as ambassador to the United Nations, Vietnam, West Germany, and the Vatican.

In The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War(Yale University Press), Luke A. Nichter brings to light previously unexamined material in telling, for the first time, the full story of Lodge’s life and significance.

About the Author . . .

Luke A. Nichter is professor of history at Texas A&M University–Central Texas and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow for 2020-21.

Nichter is a noted expert on Richard Nixon’s 3,432 hours of secret White House tapes. He is the New York Times best-selling coauthor (with Douglas Brinkley) of The Nixon Tapes: 1971–1972. A sequel volume, The Nixon Tapes: 1973, was published in 2015. His work on the Nixon tapes was the winner of the Arthur S. Link–Warren F. Kuehl Prize for Documentary Editing, awarded by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. His website, nixontapes.org, offers free access to the publicly released Nixon tapes as a public service.

Nichter’s other books include Richard Nixon and Europe: The Reshaping of the Postwar Atlantic World, which was based on multilingual archival research in six countries. He is a former founding executive producer of C-SPAN’s American History TV, launched in January 2011 in 41 million homes, and his work has appeared in or has been reported on by theNew York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, New Republic, Financial Times, and the Associated Press.

For more information, including video and audio clips of recent interviews, visit his website at http://lukenichter.com/.


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“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Everyone knows the catchphrase, but few know who coined it—much less anything about him. His name was Drew “Bundini” Brown, and in Bundini: Don’t Believe the Hype, Todd D. Snyder tells his story.

One of boxing’s most intriguing characters, Bundini was literally and figuratively a constant in Muhammad Ali’s corner, working forty-four of his sixty-one professional bouts—including all of his most significant ones. As his trainer, Bundini woke him up every morning and shadowed him in the gym every day. Over time, he became one of Ali’s closest confidants. He also served as Ali’s “hype man,” firing up the legendary boxer during every fight with interjections and exclamations that were as fierce as they were poetic.

While his impact on “The Greatest” cannot be overstated, Muhammad Ali was not the only fighter shaped by Drew “Bundini” Brown. Before ever meeting Ali, Bundini was a member of Sugar Ray Robinson’s entourage for seven consecutive years. As a primary figure in the lives of two of the biggest icons in the history of the boxing, Bundini’s impact on the sport is undeniable.

Todd D. Snyder is the son of a West Virginia boxing trainer and the author of 12 Rounds in Lo’s Gym: Boxing and Manhood in Appalachia. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. in English from Marshall University, and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. An Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing at Siena College, he lives in Albany, New York.


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White collar crime is running rampant in the United States, and it’s costing Americans an untold amount of money. White

collar crimes like fraud and embezzlement rob victims anywhere from $300 billion to $800 billion annually, while street

level crimes like burglary and theft cost about $16 billion a year, according to the FBI. But despite this eye-opening statistic,

the true extent of white collar crime is largely unknown: the federal government doesn’t have a database of these criminals,

a method of tracking the rates of these types of crime, or even annual statistics. In BIG DIRTY MONEY: The Shocking

Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime (Viking) legal scholar Jennifer Taub takes a deep dive into white collar crime, its history, and reveals why these offenders seem to get off scot-free now more than ever, at great cost to the general public.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jennifer Taub is a legal scholar and advocate whose writing focuses on “follow the money” matters— promoting

transparency and opposing corruption. She has testified as a banking law expert before Congress and has appeared on

MSNBC’s Morning Joe and CNN’s Newsroom. Taub was the Bruce W. Nichols Visiting Professor of Law in fall 2019 at

Harvard Law School and is now a professor of law at the Western New England University School of Law. A former

associate general counsel at Fidelity Investments, she is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School.


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On the heels of his National Book Critics Circle Award-winning memoir Half a Life, Darin Strauss, author of the New York Times bestseller Chang & Eng, presents us with a wild and indelible story based on the loves and losses of Lucille Ball, the woman who became Hollywood’s first true female mogul while navigating a tumultuous personal life.

In The Queen of Tuesday, Strauss mixes fact and fiction, memoir and novel, to bring us face-to-face with one of the world’s most remarkable entertainers. The novel begins with a daring conceit: that the author’s grandfather, Isidore Strauss, may have enjoyed—and suffered as a result of—a passionate affair with the legendary actress.

As Strauss shows, Lucille is a singular character—the greatest screen idol the world has ever seen, and the most powerful woman in the history of Hollywood. She starred in America’s first big-time interracial marriage. She loved hard. She may or may not have been a Communist. And she more or less single-handedly came up with the modern television business. When she got pregnant, she convinced a network that viewers would accept warmed-over episodes, thus creating the “re-run.”

While making millions laugh on the small screen, in private Lucille struggled. Her partner in that famously “happy marriage” that people tuned into, reliably, week after week, couldn’t stay faithful. And she found it difficult to balance her ever-ascending fame with the demands of being a mother, a creative genius, an entrepreneur, a media tycoon, and, most of all, a symbol.

Did Strauss’s grandfather actually have a relationship with the First Lady of Television? Who’s to say he did, and who’s to say he didn’t? Regardless, The Queen of Tuesday vibrates with Lucy’s inspiring and surprisingly human story at the same time it interrogates celebrity, media, the role of gender, and the manufacturing of glamour, offering a fresh view of a woman America adored, and reminding us all that, sometimes, you have to create your own reality.

Darin Strauss is the author of the bestselling novels Chang & Eng, The Real McCoy, More Than It Hurts You, the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning memoir Half a Life, and a bestselling comic-book series, Olivia Twist. Together, they’ve been New York Times Notable Books and Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Amazon, and NPR Best Books of the Year. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an American Library Award, Strauss has been published in 14 languages and 19 countries. He has appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS’s The Late Late Show, and has collaborated on screenplays with Gary Oldman and Julie Taymor. Films based on Half a Life and More Than it Hurts You are in progress, and the TV rights to Chang & Eng have been optionedto Ilene Chaiken, a creative force behind The “L” Word, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Empire. Clinical Professor of Fiction in the Graduate Writing Program at New York University, he lives in Brooklyn.


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Historian David Nasaw is the author of the acclaimed biographies The Patriarch, Andrew Carnegie, and The Chief, which together have been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, winner of Bancroft Prize, Lukas Prize, New-York Historical Society’s American History Book Prize, and one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times. In his sweeping new masterwork, THE LAST MILLION: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War (Penguin Press), Nasaw turns his attention to the gripping yet until now largely hidden story of the one million refugees left behind in Germany following the end of World War II.

About the Author

David Nasaw is the author of The Patriarch, selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of the Year and a 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Biography; Andrew Carnegie, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, the recipient of the New-York Historical Society's American History Book Prize, and a 2007 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Biography; and The Chief, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize for History and the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for Nonfiction. He is a past president of the Society of American Historians, and until 2019 he served as the Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center.


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In Not a Gentleman’s Work: The Untold Story of a Gruesome Murder at Sea and the Long Road to Truth, Gerard Koeppel combines history with true crime, revealing long-buried evidence from the most notorious murder in American nautical history.

The book chronicles an incident that took place aboard the Herbert Fuller, a three-masted vessel loaded with New England lumber and headed for Buenos Aires. The ship left Boston on July 8, 1896 with twelve people. By 2:00 a.m. on the sixth day at sea, three of them were dead: captain/owner Charles Nash, his wife Laura, and the second mate. All were slaughtered in their individual bunkrooms with the ship’s axe, but no one saw or heard the murders. With the killer among them, the survivors embarked on a harrowing voyage back to port.

Upon the Herbert Fuller’s return to Boston, prosecutors charged—and a jury convicted—the first mate, Thomas Bram, a naturalized American of mixed blood from St. Kitts; he was sentenced to death. But another man on board, the sole passenger, Lester Monks, a twenty-year-old Harvard drop-out from a proper Boston family, had his own dark secrets. This book tells the fates of these two vastly different men whose lives intersected briefly but indelibly.

Gerard Koeppel is the author of Water for Gotham, Bond of Union, and City on a Grid. He has contributed to numerous other books, including the Encyclopedia of New York City for which he served as an associate editor. An editor for many years at CBS News, he lives in New York City.


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Steven Dudley is the co-founder and co-director of InSight Crime, a think tank focused on organized crime in the Americas, and a senior fellow at American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies in Washington, DC.

Dudley combines reporting from the ground with deep analysis. He has written for newspapers, magazines and think tanks. He has reported for weeklies and some of the largest news outlets in the world. And he has worked on government reports that inform future priority areas and country reports for asylum lawyers.

Dudley is the former Bureau Chief of the Miami Herald in the Andean Region and the author of Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia (Routledge 2004). Dudley has also reported from Haiti, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba and Miami for National Public Radio and the Washington Post, among others.

Dudley has a BA in Latin American History from Cornell University and an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He did the Knight Fellowship at Stanford University in 2007-2008, and is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In 2012 to 2013, he was a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC where he currently resides.


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For the thirtieth anniversary of its premiere comes the vivid and immersive history behind Martin Scorsese’s signature film Goodfellas, hailed by critics as the greatest mob movie ever made.

About the Author Glenn Kenny is a long time film critic based in New York. He has written for publications such as Film Comment, the Village Voice, and Rolling Stones and contributes film reviews to the New York Times and RogerEbert.com. He teaches film at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He is the author of "Robert De Niro: Anatomy of an Actor" and has appeared in films such as Steven Soderbergh's "The Girlfriend Experience" and Ricky D'Angelo's "The Sky Is Clear and Blue Today."


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Long before Deborah Tannen became a bestselling author and internationally renowned linguist at Georgetown University, she was a young girl who adored her father—profoundly influenced by his gift for writing and storytelling.

In her riveting memoir, FINDING MY FATHER—her most personal and revealing work yet—Tannen embarks on the poignant, yet perilous, quest to piece together the puzzle of her father’s life.

Reading journals he kept as a young man, she uncovers secrets not even she could’ve expected—secrets that force Tannen to rethink her assumptions about her father’s life, her parents’ marriage, and the story she for decades told herself about her parents’ love story.

Beginning with his astonishingly vivid memories of the Hasidic community in Warsaw, where he was born in 1908, Tannen traces her father’s journey: arriving in New York City in 1920 at 12; quitting high school at 14 to support his mother and sister by working in a factory; through a vast array of jobs, including prison guard and gun-toting alcohol tax inspector; to eventually establishing a thriving law practice and running for Congress. Tannen follows her father through the trials of immigration, the Depression, the American Communist and Labor Movements—and the thicket of relations among men, women and sex, so different in his time than in her own.

FINDING MY FATHER is a daughter’s stunning labor of love: a tribute to her father and the near century that he lived. But even more, it’s an unflinching account of a daughter’s struggle to see her father more clearly, to know him more deeply, and to unearth a more truthful story about her family—and herself.

DEBORAH TANNEN is the acclaimed author of You Just Don’t Understand, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly four years; the New York Times bestsellers You’re Wearing THAT? about mothers and daughters and You Were Always Mom’s Favorite!, about sisters; and many other books. A professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, she is a frequent guest on national television and radio, including 20/20, The Oprah Winfrey Show, NBC’s Today, and NPR’s Fresh Air and 1A. She has written for and been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, and Harvard Business Review, among many others. She lives with her husband in the Washington, D.C., area.


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With REAGANLAND: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980 , historian Rick Perlstein concludes his sweeping four-volume account of the rise of modern American conservatism.

Over two decades (and more than three thousand pages), Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in American politics: Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of American Consensus (2002); Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008); and The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (2014). With the saga’s final installment, REAGANLAND—covering the years from Jimmy Carter’s election to his defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan—he has delivered his most stunning literary and historical achievement yet. Perlstein shows how much the nation changed over those years—and just as importantly, how those changes produced the world we live in now.

About the author

Rick Perlstein is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan; Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, a New York Timesbestseller picked as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by over a dozen publications; and Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, which won the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history and appeared on the best books of the year lists of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune. His essays and book reviews have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Village Voice, and Slate, among others. A contributing editor and board member of In These Times magazine, he lives in Chicago.


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In the next thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling Mitch Rapp series, it’s a race against the clock

when ISIS takes out the entire US power grid and throws the country into chaos.

When Mitch Rapp captures ISIS’s top technology expert, he reveals that he was on his way to meet a man who

claims to have the ability to bring down America’s power grid. Rapp is determined to eliminate this shadowy

figure, but the CIA’s trap fails.

The Agency is still trying to determine what went wrong when ISIS operatives help this cyber terrorist do what

he said he could—plunge the country into darkness. With no concept of how this unprecedented act was

accomplished, the task of getting the power back on could take months. Perhaps even years.

Rapp and his team embark on a desperate search for the only people who know how to repair the damage—

the ones responsible. But his operating environment is like nothing he’s experienced before. Computers and

communication networks are down, fuel can no longer be pumped from gas stations, water and sanitation

systems are on the brink of collapse, and the supply of food is running out.

On Vince Flynn:

Total Power is the 19th book featuring counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp.

All 14 books that Vince Flynn wrote before his death were New York Times bestsellers, 3 of them reached the top of

the New York Times bestseller list

Nearly 75 million Vince Flynn books have been sold worldwide

At least 2 United States Presidents and 1 King are fans of

Vince Flynn: he’s heard personally from both President Bill

Clinton and President George W. Bush (left) that they’re big

fans, the latter even inviting him to the White House on

several occasions. King Abdullah II of Jordan (see right) has

hosted Vince in his palace and requests each new book for his enjoyment.

On Kyle Mills:

Kyle Mills is the New York Times bestselling author of

twenty-one books, including five previous Mitch Rapp

novels, The Survivor, Order to Kill, Enemy of the State, Red

War and last year’s #1 New York Times bestseller Lethal Agent.

Kyle’s father was an FBI agent, the Legal Attaché to the UK,

and the director of Interpol. As the legend that Vince Flynn

created goes: Mitch Rapp joined the CIA in reaction to the

love of his life dying in Pan Am 103. Well, in real life, Kyle’s

father was the FBI’s lead man in the investigation of that

terrorist attack. It happened during Kyle’s college

graduation dinner in London where he was stationed at the

time. His assistant came to the restaurant and told him that

a plane had gone down in a small Scottish town. That was the last he saw of him for months.

The Mills family first met Tom Clancy when he was researching his second book and still

worked as an insurance salesman. His FBI character Dan Murray is based on Mills’s father.

Because of Kyle’s father’s job, he grew up in Oregon, Washington, DC.


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TRUMP ON TRIAL: The Investigation, Impeachment, Acquittal and Aftermath by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalists Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, in collaboration with The Post staff.

Anchored in fresh reporting and interviews from Washington and abroad, the book offers a richly detailed, fast-paced narrative of what happened and why as Donald Trump faced only the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history. Among the book’s many revelatory scenes: A split-screen account of Trump’s fateful July 25, 2019 telephone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, with a senior Zelensky adviser passing him notes as the conversation drifts in the direction that aides on both sides had feared.

Deeply reported and character-driven, TRUMP ON TRIALis the first and most definitive portrayal yet of the forces at work in this historic confrontation. The book is also an intimate and immersive study of political power: the people who have it, use it, and abuse it. Among the book’s many compelling storylines is the personal feud between Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking elected woman in American history, and Trump, the president who engaged in a relentless social media campaign to rail against the investigation that threatened his presidency and his ambition of a second term.

About the Authors

Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan are Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists for The Washington Post. A married couple, they were based abroad for fourteen years as the Post’s co–bureau chiefs in Tokyo, Mexico City, and London. Sullivan writes about national and international issues. Jordan is a national political correspondent. They are the coauthors of the #1 New York Times bestseller Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland and The Prison Angel: Mother Antonia's Journey from Beverly Hills to a Life of Service in a Mexican Jail. Jordan is also the author of The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump.


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BLACKTOP WASTELAND (Flatiron Books) is about a diamond heist schemed up by an uneasy alliance of poor men and women. Black and white, they live in the Virginia Tidewater region in a town where the desire to be more, have more, leave and live large haunts. With breakneck twists, heartbreaking intents and the missteps of its indelible characters, S. A. Cosby weaves a story about black male identity, about what it means to be from the South and have its history not include your story, and about the pull of family and its confusing messages about love and inheritance.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Shawn A. Cosby is a writer from Southeastern Virginia, now residing in Gloucester, Virginia. His short fiction has appeared

in numerous anthologies and magazines. His short story "The Grass Beneath My Feet" won the Anthony award for best short story in 2019. He is also the author of My Darkest Prayer and Brotherhood of the Blade. His writing is influenced by his experience as a bouncer, construction worker, retail

manager and for six hours a mascot for a major fast food chain inside the world's hottest costume. When he isn't crafting tales of murder and mayhem he assists the dedicated staff at J.K. Redmond Funeral home as a mortician's assistant. He is an avid hiker and is also known as one hell of a chess player.


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Readers everywhere turn to Debbie Macomber for stories of love, loss, and hope. In A WALK ALONG THE BEACH (Ballantine),two sisters must learn from each other's strengths and trust in the redeeming power of love, ultimately discovering that even in the darkest moments, family is everything.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Debbie Macomber, the author of Window on the Bay, Cottage by the Sea, Any Dream Will Do, If Not for You, and the Rose Harbor Inn series, is a leading voice in women’s fiction. Thirteen of her novels have reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller lists, and five of her beloved Christmas novels have been hit movies on the Hallmark Channel, including Mrs. Miracle and Mr. Miracle. Hallmark Channel also produced the original series Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove, based on Macomber’s Cedar Cove books. She is, as well, the author of the cookbook Debbie Macomber’s Table. There are more than 200 million copies of her books in print worldwide.


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In 1942, freshly humiliated from the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt demanded a show of strength against the Japanese. Jimmy Doolittle, a stunt pilot with a doctorate from MIT, came forward and led eighty young men on a seemingly impossible mission across the Pacific. Dubbed “The Doolittle Raiders,” they struck the mainland of Japan and permanently turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.

But their legendary l mission wasn’t the end of the story. In his debut history, LAST MISSION TO TOKYO: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight for Justice (Simon & Schuster), legal scholar and historian Michel Paradisuncovers one of the last untold stories of a seminal moment in World War II: the pair of trials in Shanghai that determined the future of legal and military history. With incredible and gripping detail, he recounts the dramatic aftermath of the Doolittle mission, which involved two lost crews captured, tried, and tortured at the hands of the Japanese; the dramatic rescue the survivors in the last weeks of the conflict; and the international manhunt and trial led by two dynamic and opposing young lawyers - Major Robert Dwyer, a prosecutor determined to bring justice to the Raiders, and Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Bodine, assigned to defend the Japanese - who were forced to confront the questions of what constitutes a fair trial, when we should show mercy to our enemies, and right and wrong in the fog of war.

The result is a heart-stopping, perspective-shifting courtroom drama that opens our eyes to a final act in the story of the Greatest Generation. Like compelling World War II histories such as Lucky 666 and Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial, LAST MISSION TO TOKYO is a thrilling war story meets courtroom drama that also offers a deep dive into the Japanese perspective that fans of Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima" will find fascinating.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michel Paradis is a leading human rights lawyer and national security law scholar. He has won high-profile cases in courts around the globe and worked for over a decade with the US Department of Defense, Military Commissions Defense Organization, where he led many of the landmark court cases to arise out of Guantanamo Bay. He also holds the position of Lecturer at Columbia Law School, where he teaches on the military, the constitution, and the law of war. He received his doctorate from Oxford University and his law degree from Fordham Law School. He has appeared on or written for NPR, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Foreign Policy, Lawfare, America, The Intercept, and the late Weekly Standard. He lives with his family in Manhattan. Learn more at www.michelparadis.com and follow him at www.twitter.com/michelparadis


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Sadie’s sad past means she’s been carrying guilt for years. Is she strong enough to let it all go and accept the joy destiny is offering? She is a successful photographer and single mother who is juggling it all. When a chance encounter with a psychic reveals that her soul mate is waiting for her, she has a choice to make: believe in serendipity or stay stuck in the status quo. Is Sadie too focused on her past to see what fate has delivered to her doorstep? Can she release the pain from that past in time to save the love that destiny has delivered? And who is the sexy cowboy waiting in the wings? Find out in Psychic Serendipity, a true-to-life new romance from Lorraine Toth.


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Usually remembered for its slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” the election of 1840 is also the first presidential election of which it might be truly said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Tackling a contest best known for log cabins, cider barrels, and catchy songs, this timely volume reveals that the election of 1840 might be better understood as a case study of how profoundly the economy shapes the presidential vote.

Richard J. Ellis is Mark O. Hatfield Professor of Politics, Policy, Law, and Ethics at Willamette University. His many books include The Development of the American Presidency (3rd edition), Historian in Chief: How Presidents Interpret the Past to Shape the Future (as coeditor), and, from Kansas, Presidential Travel: The Journey from George Washington to George W. Bush.


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One of the most dynamic groups of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Talking Heads, founded by drummer Chris Frantz, his girlfriend Tina Weymouth, and lead singer David Byrne, burst onto the music scene, playing at CBGBs, touring Europe with the Ramones, and creating hits like “Psycho Killer” and “Burning Down the House” that captured the post-baby boom generation’s intense, affectless style.

In Remain in Love, Frantz writes about the beginnings of Talking Heads—their days as art students in Providence, moving to the sparse Chrystie Street loft Frantz, Weymouth, and Byrne shared where the music that defined an era was written. With never-before-seen photos and immersive vivid detail, Frantz describes life on tour, down to the meals eaten and the clothes worn—and reveals the mechanics of a long and complicated working relationship with a mercurial frontman.

At the heart of Remain in Love is Frantz’s love for Weymouth: their once-in-a-lifetime connection as lovers, musicians, and bandmates, and how their creativity surged with the creation of their own band Tom Tom Club, bringing a fresh Afro-Caribbean beat to hits like “Genius of Love.”

Studded with memorable places and names from the era—Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Stephen Sprouse, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and Debbie Harry among them—Remain in Love is a frank and open memoir of an emblematic life in music and in love.

CHRIS FRANTZ is a musician, producer, and songwriter and founding member of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club.


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From the twisted mind behind mega hitMy Lovely Wifecomes the story of a family—not unlike your own—just with a few more violent tendencies thrown in....

Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven't all been together in years. And for very good reasons—we'll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and—more importantly—secure their inheritance.

But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone.

It's even harder when you're all keeping secrets and trying to forget a memory, a missing person, an act of revenge, the man in the black truck who won't stop following your car—and especially when at least one of you is a killer and there's a body in the trunk. Just to name a few reasons.

But money is a powerful motivator. It is for everyone.


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THE PREMISE The Wax Pack: On the open road in search of baseball's afterlife is the true story of tracking down all the players in a single pack of 1986 Topps on a 11,341-mile road trip across the U.S. What started out as a fit of nostalgia became something much bigger than baseball: A meditation on the loss of innocence, what it means to grow up, and the surprising gift accessible to us all: Impermanence.

Brad Balukjian is a doctor, but not one who can write you a prescription (unless you're a sick insect). He hated school when he was little, but now loves it so much that after graduating from the 23rd grade, he has moved to the other side of the desk to teach natural history at Merritt College in Oakland, California. He has strong opinions about the value of education, exposure to nature, and utility infielders from the 1980s, and is pursuing a hybrid career of teaching, writing, and research to get the word out that science is accessible and (gasp!) fun. He chose this path because he never wants to stop learning and apparently has a strong aversion to money. This is his first time writing in the third-person.


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jax Miller is an American author. While hitchhiking across America in her twenties, she wrote her first novel, Freedom's Child, for which she won the 2016 Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle and earned several CWA Dagger nominations. She has received acclaim from the New York Times, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, and many more. She now works in the true-crime genre, having penned her much-anticipated book and acting as creator, host, and executive producer on the true-crime documentary series Hell in the Heartland on CNN's HLN network. Jax is a lover of film and music, and has a passion for rock 'n' roll and writing screenplays.

Like Michelle McNamara in I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Miller delicately unravels a decades-long mystery. Along the way, she uncovers a second story about a forgotten region. Like Brian Reed in S-Town, Miller pierces a broken rural community ensnared by drugs and poverty, and is drawn into the lives of people trapped within its cycle. She also investigates theories of police corruption, and discovers jaw-dropping evidence of negligence and mismanagement. Among the most well-known examples is that the parents of Lauria Bible actually discovered one of the two burnt bodies left in the trailer, a full day after investigators combed the scene.

Miller chronicles not just the crime at hand but the deterioration of her own mental health as she puts her life on the sidelines in an obsessive quest to find the girls and see the case through authorities’ first arrest. She has dug for bodies, faced down the barrel of a gun, sat with meth heads, taken criminals’ confessions, and endured death threats she is still too scared to discuss. A former addict, Miller was able to get into the dark corners of a region ravaged by methamphetamine, speaking with hundreds of sources, many of whom remained fearful to come forward years after the crime.

Miller’s docuseries of the same name premiered on HLN in 2019. HELL IN THE HEARTLAND’s exquisite prose is drawing early comparisons to Hillbilly Elegy and Educated from Penguin sales reps, and belongs on the shelf next to American Predator, The Fact of a Body, Say Nothing and other pivotal true crime narratives.

Twitter: @RealJaxMiller

Facebook: @RealJaxMiller


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One of America’s premier historians traces the origin story of our deeply partisan times, examining how Newt Gingrich and his allies reshaped Washington with an anti-establishment, take-no-prisoners approach to politics

When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, President Obama observed that Trump “is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years.” In BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party, author Julian Zelizer, esteemed Princeton historian and CNN Political Analyst, pinpoints the moment when our country was set on a path towards the current era of bitterly partisan and ruthless politics. Zelizer argues that Newt Gingrich’s political strategies in the 1980s, when he waged a campaign against Speaker of the House Jim Wright, have inspired some of the most divisive episodes in contemporary American politics, from the Tea Party movement to the Trump presidency.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julian E. Zelizer is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and a CNN Political Analyst. He is a co-host of the Politics and Polls podcast. His most recent books are Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974 (co-authored with Kevin Kruse) and The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society, the winner of the D.B. Hardeman Prize for Best Book on Congress. Zelizer has been awarded fellowships from the New York Historical Society, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and New America.

www.julianzelizer.com

Twitter: @julianzelizer


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Demagogue is two books in one – a biography of Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, one of the most reviled figures in U.S. history, and a broader look at America’s long-standing love affair with bullies.

Author Larry Tye got the first-ever access to McCarthy’s personal and professional papers, medical and military records, love letters, wartime diaries, and other files that had been under lock and key for half a century. Examining this fresh evidence of McCarthy’s official excesses, and of his surprising behind-the-scenes humanity, makes him more authentic, if also more confounding. Today, every schoolchild in America is introduced to Joe McCarthy, but generally as a caricature, and their parents and grandparents recall the senator mainly with catch phrases like witch hunter or with a single word: evil. The newly disclosed records let us shave away the myths and understand how the junior senator from Grand Chute rose to become powerful enough not just to intimidate Dwight Eisenhower, our most popular postwar president, but to provoke senators and others to take their own lives. Pulling open the curtain, Tye reveals Senator McCarthy as neither the Genghis Kahn his enemies depicted, nor the Joan of Arc rendered by friends.


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About THE BOURNE EVOLUTION:

After the death of his lover in a mass shooting, secret agent and the man without a past, Jason Bourne is convinced that there is more to her murder than it seems. Worse, he believes that Treadstone, the clandestine spy agency that trained him, is behind the killing. Bourne goes rogue, leaving Treadstone behind and taking on a new mission to infiltrate and expose Medusa, a shadowy, anarchical cyber-enemy intent on harvesting and controlling the world’s private information.

As an independent operative, Bourne has been hired by a powerful cabal of tech executives who want him to stop the threat posed to their empire by the crusading young congresswoman Sofia Ortiz. When Ortiz is assassinated during a rally in New York’s Washington Square Park, it is assumed that Bourne is behind it. Bourne alone knows that someone else pulled the trigger. And that someone is now after him.

Meanwhile, Abbey Laurent, a dogged Canadian journalist, has watched the assassination firsthand. Back in Quebec City, she awaits a rendezvous with an informant—Bourne—when she witnesses even more violent killing. Soon, Abbey is engaged in a cat-and-mouse game, not only with Bourne, but with an unknown killer. Despite her street smarts, the seasoned reporter can’t be sure who is telling her the truth and whom she can trust. When she reluctantly places her faith in the enigmatic Bourne, a cyclone of danger will take her and her mystery protector from Canada to the U.S. to the Caribbean—as Bourne tries to figure out who has framed him for the congresswoman’s murder and who exactly the real enemy is.

www.BFreemanBooks.com

Twitter: @bfreemanbooks

Facebook: @bfreemanfans

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Brian Freeman is a bestselling author of more than twenty novels, including the Jonathan Stride and Frost Easton series. His Audible original, The Deep, Deep Snow, landed on the New York Times Audio bestseller list. His stand-alone novel Spilled Blood won the award for Best Hardcover Novel in the International Thriller Writers Awards, and his novel The Burying Place was a finalist for the same award. His debut novel, Immoral, won the Macavity Award and was a finalist for the Dagger, Edgar, Anthony, and Barry awards for Best First Novel. Freeman lives in Minnesota with his wife.

Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He was the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series--The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum--among other novels. Ludlum passed away in March 2001.


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From the author of the “suspenseful, atmospheric, and completely riveting” (Megan Miranda) Book of the Month Club selection The Winter Sister (2019), Megan Collins returns with this summer’s breakout thriller, Behind the Red Door ( Atria). A gripping, sinister page-turner that seems ripped straight from the headlines, it centers on a woman who feels a mysterious connection to the victim of an infamous decades old kidnapping.

When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a thirty-four-year-old missing woman from Maine, she’s positive she knows her. Fern’s husband is sure it’s because of Astrid’s famous kidnapping—and equally famous return—twenty years ago, but Fern has no memory of that. But when Astrid appears in Fern’s recurring nightmare, one in which a girl reaches out to her, pleading, Fern fears that it’s not a dream at all, but a memory.

Fern purchases a copy of Astrid’s recently published memoir, which the media speculates has provoked her original kidnapper to abduct her again. With the help of her psychologist father, Fern digs deeper, hoping to find evidence that her connection to Astrid can help the police locate her. But when Fern discovers more about her own past than she ever bargained for, the disturbing truth will change both of the women's lives forever.


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Julie Pennell, author of the critically acclaimed debut, The Young Wives Club, returns with her latest Southern charmer, LOUISIANA LUCKY . For fans of Mary Alice Monroe and Kristy Woodson Harvey, the story stars three sisters who win a huge lottery prize. Lexi, Callie, and Hanna Breaux grew up in small-town Louisiana, and have always struggled to make ends meet. When the incredible happens and the Breaux sisters hit it big—$204 million dollars big—all their dreams come true… Or so they think. Heartfelt, engaging, and featuring characters you’ll root for from the first moment you meet them, Louisiana Lucky is a satisfying, page-turning beach read from a rising star in women’s fiction.

Julie Pennell was born and raised in Louisiana. After graduating from college, she headed to New York to work at Seventeen magazine. She currently lives in Philadelphia with her husband and young son, and is a regular contributor to TODAY.com. Her writing has also appeared in The Knot, In Style, and Refinery29. She is the author of The Young Wives Club and Louisiana Lucky.


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A new domestic suspense novel from Shari Lapena, the New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door and Someone We Know. Stephanie and Patrick are adjusting to life with their colicky twin girls. The babies are a handful, but even as Stephanie struggles with the disorientation of sleep deprivation, there's one thing she's sure of: she has all she ever wanted. Then Erica, a woman from Patrick's past, appears and makes a disturbing accusation. Patrick had always said his first wife's death was an accident, but now Erica claims it was murder. Patrick insists he's innocent, that this is nothing but a blackmail attempt. Still, Erica knows things about Patrick--things that make Stephanie begin to question her husband. Stephanie isn't sure what, or who, to believe. As Stephanie's trust in Patrick begins to falter, Patrick stands to lose everything. Is Patrick telling the truth--is Erica the persuasive liar Patrick says she is? Or has Stephanie made a terrible mistake?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of the thrillers The Couple Next Door, A Stranger in the House, An Unwanted Guest, and Someone We Know, which have all been New York Times and The Sunday Times (London) bestsellers. Her books have been sold in thirty-seven territories around the world. She lives in Toronto.


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The iconic author of the bestselling phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians returns with a glittering tale of love and longing as a young woman finds herself torn between two worlds – the WASP establishment of her father’s family and George Zao, a man she is desperately trying to avoid falling in love with.

On her very fist morning on the jewel-like island of Capri, Lucie Churchill sets eyes on George Zao, and she instantly can’t stand him. She can’t stand it when he gallantly offers to trade hotel rooms with her so that she can have a view of the Tyrrhenian Sea, she can’t stand that he knows more about Casa Malaparte than she does, and she really can’t stand it when he kisses her in the darkness of the ancient ruins of a Roman villa and they are caught by her snobbish, disapproving cousin Charlotte. “Your mother is Chinese so it’s no surprise you’d be attracted to someone like him,” Charlotte teases.

The daughter of an American-born Chinese mother and blue-blooded New York father, Lucie has always sublimated the Asian side of herself in favor of the white side, and she adamantly denies having feelings for George. But several years later, when George unexpectedly appears in East Hampton, where Lucie is weekending with her new fiancé, she finds herself drawn to George again. Soon, Lucie is spinning a web of deceit that involves her family, her fiancé, the co-op board of her Fifth Avenue apartment building, and ultimately herself as she tries mightily to deny George entry into her world – and her heart.

Moving among summer playgrounds of privilege, peppered with decadent food and extravagant fashion, SEX AND VANITY (Doubleday)is a truly modern love story, a daring homage to A Room with a View, and a brilliantly funny comedy of manners set between two cultures.


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In his popular book, American Nations, award-winning journalist Colin Woodard argued for the existence of 11 separate stateless nations within the United States, where rival cultures explain history, identity, and voting behaviors. With his new book, UNION: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood (Viking), Woodard expands on a theme from Nations: how the cherished idea of a unified country has ignored the basic facts of our history. In this fascinating study of a fractured America, he examines how the myth of our national unity was created and fought over by five men—George Bancroft, William Gilmore Simms, Frederick Douglass, Woodrow Wilson, and Frederick Jackson Turner—and how it continues to affect us today.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Colin Woodard is a New York Times bestselling writer, historian, and journalist who has reported from more than fifty foreign countries and six continents. A longtime foreign correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and The San Francisco Chronicle, he is a reporter at the Portland Press Herald, where he received a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and Politico. He is the author of American Nations, American Character, The Lobster Coast, The Republic of Pirates, and Ocean's End and lives in Maine.


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In this penetrating analysis of the role of political leadership in the Cold War's ending, Archie Brown shows why the popular view that Western economic and military strength left the Soviet Union with no alternative but to admit defeat is wrong.

To understand the significance of the parts played by Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in East-West relations in the second half of the 1980s, Brown addresses several specific questions: What were the values and assumptions of these leaders, and how did their perceptions evolve? What were the major influences on them? To what extent were they reflecting the views of their own political establishment or challenging them? How important for ending the East-West standoff were their interrelations? Would any of the realistically alternative leaders of their countries at that time have pursued approximately the same policies?

The Cold War got colder in the early 1980s and the relationship between the two military superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, each of whom had the capacity to annihilate the other, was tense. By the end of the decade, East-West relations had been utterly transformed, with most of the dividing lines - including the division of Europe - removed. Engagement between Gorbachev and Reagan was a crucial part of that process of change. More surprising was Thatcher's role. Regarded by Reagan as his ideological and political soulmate, she formed also a strong and supportive relationship with Gorbachev (beginning three months before he came to power). Promoting Gorbachev in Washington as 'a man to do business with', she became, in the words of her foreign policy adviser Sir Percy Cradock, 'an agent of influence in both directions'.

Archie Brown is a British political scientist and historian. He is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University and Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony’s College, Oxford. A Fellow of the British Academy since 1991, Professor Brown was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003. He has written widely on Soviet and Communist politics, the Cold War, and political leadership.


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About DRAGONFIRE

In 1941, the new Chinese ambassador to the United States, Tiger Tang, meets with President Roosevelt one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next four years, China and the U.S. will be wartime allies, but the charming, sophisticated ambassador may be playing his own treacherous game.

But today, while Alex Hawke is recovering from serious injuries incurred during a mission, his recuperation is interrupted by a desperate call from the Queen. Her grandson has disappeared in the Bahamas. Lord Hawke is the only man she trusts with a mission this sensitive. All she knows is that the young prince was last seen at the exclusive Dragonfire nightclub owned by the nefarious Tang brothers, grandsons of Ambassador Tiger Tang.


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Historians have long viewed President John Tyler as one of the nation’s least effective heads of state. In President without a Party—the first full- scale biography of Tyler in more than fifty years and the first new academic study of him in eight decades—Christopher J. Leahy explores the life of the tenth chief executive of the United States. Born in the Virginia Tidewater into an elite family sympathetic to the ideals of the American Revolution, Tyler, like his father, worked as an attorney before entering politics. Leahy uses a wealth of primary source materials to chart Tyler’s early political path, from his election to the Virginia legislature in 1811, through his stints as a congressman and senator, to his vice- presidential nomination on the Whig ticket for the campaign of 1840. When William Henry Harrison died unexpectedly a mere month after assuming the presidency, Tyler became the first vice president to become president because of the death of the incumbent. Leahy traces Tyler’s ascent to the highest office in the land and unpacks the fraught dynamics between Tyler and his fellow Whigs, who ultimately banished the beleaguered president from their ranks and stymied his election bid three years later. Leahy also examines the president’s personal life, especially his relationships with his wives and children. In the end, Leahy suggests, politics fulfilled Tyler the most, often to the detriment of his family. Such was true even after his presidency, when Virginians elected him to the Confederate Congress in 1861, and northerners and Unionists branded him a “traitor president.” The most complete accounting of Tyler’s life and career, Leahy’s biography makes an original contribution to the fields of politics, family life, and slavery in the antebellum South. Moving beyond the standard, often shortsighted studies that describe Tyler as simply a defender of the Old South’s dominant ideology of states’ rights and strict construction of the Constitution, Leahy offers a nuanced portrayal of a president who favored a middle- of- the- road, bipartisan approach to the nation’s problems. This strategy did not make Tyler popular with either the Whigs or the opposition Democrats while he was in office, or with historians and biographers ever since. Moreover, his most significant achievement as president—the annexation of Texas—exacerbated sectional tensions and put the United States on the road to civil war.

Christopher J. Leahy is professor of history at Keuka College in New York


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Roy “Doc” Halladay was an All-Star, a two-time Cy Young winner, a superstar and ultimately a Hall of Famer. But Roy was also a quiet enigma, a man who worked harder than anyone and let his pitches do his talking. He intimidated opponents, and his silent intensity hung between him and the media, his fans and even some of his teammates.

In Doc: The Life of Roy Halladay (Triumph Books), longtime Phillies writer Todd Zolecki reveals the real Roy Halladay in a way which has never been done before. Thoroughly and thoughtfully reported, with input and reflections from Halladay's teammates, coaches, competitors and more, this is an essential biography for baseball fans everywhere. Highlights include:

More than a hundred interviews with Roy’s coaches, teammates, friends, family, and childhood and minor league confidants, as well as extensive interviews with Roy’s wife, Brandy

An examination of Halladay's distinctive, disciplined approach to pitching, his impact as a teammate and community member and the baseball world's honoring of these qualities in Cooperstown in 2019

Trained to be a pitcher since childhood, witness Roy Halladay’s early years and what lead him to garnering the attention of major league scouts as a teenager in Colorado

From Roy’s driven adolescence chasing a baseball dream to his largely unknown early struggles as a big leaguer, from his methodical reinvention as an ace in Toronto to the signature no-hitter he authored in his playoff debut with the Philadelphia Phillies, from the battles at the end of his career to his struggles in retirement and untimely death,. Doc: The Life of Roy Halladay peels away everything to show us the true Roy Halladay.

About the Author:

Todd Zolecki is the Philadelphia Phillies beat reporter for MLB.com. He is the author of The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: Philadelphia Phillies, and co-author of The Rotation: A Season with the Phillies and One of the Greatest Pitching Staffs Ever Assembled. He lives with his family in Media, Pennsylvania.


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Former Army Ranger Quinn Colson returned a decade ago to his native Tibbehah County, Mississippi, to serve as sheriff. In the last nine books of the series, he has sparred with white supremacists, collided with corrupt religious leaders, and grappled with issues of racism on his home turf. New York Times-bestselling author Ace Atkins writes, “The genesis of the series was to write about the new South, what’s happening right now. And you can’t really escape the rise of Trumpism and its effect on Southerners. I am definitely an old school storyteller, writing about a classic American hero who embraces old fashioned ideas like truth, justice, and the American way. Quinn is pretty straight ahead in what he believes.”

The series’ tenth installment, THE REVELATORS (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), comes down to a climactic battle against corruption and evil. For years, Quinn has taken on Fannie Hathcock, a vicious crime queenpin who runs a sleazy strip joint next to a highway truck stop. But Fannie’s real business is running drugs, guns, stolen goods, and underage girls. So far, she’s been under the protection of crime bosses and corrupt politicians, including now even the governor of the state.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ace Atkins is the author of twenty-six books, including ten Quinn Colson novels and eight New York Times– bestselling novels in the continuation of Robert B. Parker’s iconic Spenser series. HBO has optioned the Quinn Colson novels with a series currently in high development and Atkins’ second novel for Robert B. Parker estate, Wonderland, was just made into the film Spenser Confidential with Mark Wahlberg and Winston Duke. A former newspaper reporter and SEC football player, Atkins also writes essays and investigative pieces for several publications, including Garden & Gun, the Wall Street Journal and Outside. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his family.


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Behind Tracy Tutor's entertaining on-screen persona is an uncanny knack for projecting confidence in the most intimidating of circumstances. The breezy, tough-talking, utterly inimitable LA real estate broker has rivaled her male co-stars to land increasingly high-profile deals. In FEAR IS JUST A FOUR-LETTER WORD: How to Develop the Unstoppable Confidence to Own Any Room, Tracy leverages her years of experience to provide the go-to manual for women who struggle to convince people they're in charge. The first step in Tracy's system for confidence is to figure out what people want and how they operate. From there, simply push the right levers of influence. Through candid, hilarious stories of her rise through the male-dominated world of high-end real estate (text message screen shots from creeps included!), Tracy offers a crash course in the psychology of power dynamics and social signaling.

This book is a must-read for any ambitious woman who wants to learn not only how to be in important rooms but how to run them.

Tracy Tutor is a top real estate agent at Douglas Elliman Beverly Hills, consulting with some of the world's leading architects and developers. She is the first and only female cast member on Bravo's Million Dollar Listing LA. The show's twelfth season is now running through August 2020. She lives in Los Angeles with her two daughters.


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A BURNING is about three characters whose lives become entwined after a terrorist attack in India. It is taut, electrifying, and dazzling. “I started writing A Burning from a place of alarm and anger,” says Megha Majumdar, “I saw a world changing in frightening ways, growing more intolerant of minority communities and more extremist, and I wanted to look at individuals caught within those turns of society.”

Megha grew up in Kolkata, India and studied social anthropology at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. She is currently an editor at Catapult. Her novel is rooted in history and place and written with an indelible care for her characters. A Burning is a page-turner about accusation and betrayal, innocence and guilt, longing and love.


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In this spellbinding collection, Paretsky showcases her extraordinary talents in a new V.I. Warshawski story, along with fourteen additional short stories, eight of those featuring the indomitable detective. As Publishers Weekly praised, ““The love that really comes through in each story is the love and empathy Paretsky has for her all-too-human characters.”

Paretsky is the master of twisting suspense and pacey plot. She is one of only four living writers to have received both the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. She has been hailed by the crime community as "a legend" (Harlan Coben) and "one of the all-time greats" (Karin Slaughter). Her acclaimed novels featuring detective V.I. Warshawski rank among the most celebrated crime series in modern fiction.

For longtime fans of V.I. Warshawski, new readers discovering her for the first time, or any lover of crime and suspense, LOVE & OTHER CRIMES is a celebration of Paretsky’s exceptional storytelling skill and a searing exploration of the dark conspiracies and desperate human acts hiding in plain sight.


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About ELIZA STARTS A RUMOR by Jane L. Rosen

Eliza Hunt is the creator of the Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board, a local social media group for the mothers of her community just north of New York City that she started when her twins were barely out of diapers. Fifteen years later, with an empty nest and a crippling secret affliction—agoraphobia—it’s brought to her attention that the younger moms in her town no longer have any use for the group she prides herself in running. Instead, there’s a new group online—and this one is populated with comments airing the salacious and personal details of her neighbors’ lives. The group is lively and has so much activity, and in a moment of jealousy and boredom, Eliza attempts to rile up her own community by starting a tiny rumor in a post on the Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board. But you know what they say about rumors: they often contain a nugget of truth.

The rumor—an anonymous comment about an alleged affair—spreads like wildfire and affects Eliza’s closest real life friends. New mom Olivia York is convinced the rumor is about her husband. Allison Le, a single mom and new to the Hudson Valley, channels the New York City lawyer she used to be and attempts to investigate Olivia’s fears—but even she is not immune to deception via the Bulletin Board by a new friend she meets there. And Amanda Cole, Eliza’s childhood best friend, has reentered the community following years of abuse from her Hollywood husband—but she also might hold the key to why Eliza’s agoraphobia has reared its ugly head and led to this mess.

In ELIZA STARTS A RUMOR, Rosen explores female friendships and the power of community—both online and in real life.


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In Seven Days in Augusta: Behind the Scenes at the Masters (Triumph Books), veteran New York Post sportswriter Mark Cannizzaro explores the rich history and deep connection between Augusta National and the world’s most iconic and prestigious golf tournament. Cannizzaro, who’s covered a quarter century of Masters tournaments, combines his experience and passion for the sport in this engaging collection of essays. Loaded with insights from the biggest personalities in the golf world, this great new title will bring value to longtime golf fans and the younger generation alike. Highlights include:

About the Author:

Mark Cannizzaro is a native of Fairfield, CT, and a graduate of Ithaca College, where he competed on its Division III soccer and tennis teams. He is a columnist at the New York Post, where he's worked since 1994 and has covered more than 100 major championships, including 25 Masters Tournaments and every Ryder Cup since 1997. He is a golf addict whose finest accomplishment as a player was winning $10 from Phil Mickelson in a putting contest on Mickelson's backyard putting green. He lives in Highlands, NJ, and Manhattan with his wife, Carolyn Waters.


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The Second World War exists in the American historical imagination as a time of unity and optimism. In 1942, however, after a series of defeats in the Pacific and the struggle to establish a beachhead on the European front, America seemed to be on the brink of defeat and was beginning to splinter from within.

Exploring this precarious moment, Tracy Campbell paints a portrait of the deep social, economic, and political fault lines that pitted factions of citizens against each other in the post–Pearl Harbor era, even as the nation mobilized, government-aided industrial infrastructure blossomed, and parents sent their sons off to war. This captivating look at how American society responded to the greatest stress experienced since the Civil War reveals the various ways, both good and bad, that the trauma of 1942 forced Americans to redefine their relationship with democracy in ways that continue to affect us today.

TRACY CAMPBELL is professor of history at the University of Kentucky. His previous books include The Gateway Arch: A Biography and Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition, 1742–2004. He lives in Lexington, KY.


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THE LAST TRAIN TO KEY WEST is another example of Chanel Cleeton’s gorgeous historical storytelling as she brings to life three bold young women whose paths cross over Labor Day weekend, 1935, when a devastating storm wreaks havoc on the Florida Keys – the very first Category 5 storm to hit American soil. These women seem very different on the surface, but ultimately their lives will never be the same after their chance encounters during this life-altering, completely unforgettable moment in history. Cleeton has a gift for transporting readers back in time, weaving in elements of Cuban-American history that aren’t often focused on in literature, and THE LAST TRAIN TO KEY WEST offers no exception.


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Tom Clavin’s popular Western histories have delighted readers and earned critical accolades. Like many, Clavin is fascinated by the larger-than-life personalities and enduring myths that surround the Wild West. His histories take on those myths and legends, separating fact from fiction to get at what really happened. In Dodge City, he told the true story of how a depraved cattle town was tamed by two young lawmen. In Wild Bill, he provided a definitive biography of the first lawman of the Wild West. In his next book, TOMBSTONE: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride from Hell (St. Martin’s Press) he takes readers to Tombstone, Arizona to examine the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral and the “vendetta ride” that made Earp a legend. Together, these three books form the Frontier Lawmen Trilogy and deepen the understanding of the country’s formative years when new social structures were shaping a new way of life.

Clavin’s trilogy draws a line from the post-Civil War years where the prototype of the frontier lawman was established by Wild Bill Hickok to the mid-late 1870s when Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson cleaned up Dodge City as peace officers, to Tombstone, where the 1881 gunfight can be seen as the last gasp of violent lawlessness in a closing frontier as “civilization” took hold in the West. Today, the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys seems clear but the truth was far murkier. This is especially true of the men who faced off in Tombstone.

In TOMBSTONE, Clavin uses existing scholarship and his own extensive research to tell the story of the most famous shootout in American frontier history. The fight sprang forth from a tense, hot summer. Cattle rustlers had been terrorizing the back country of Mexico and selling the livestock they stole to corrupt ranchers. The Mexican government built forts along the border to try to thwart American outlaws, while Arizona citizens became increasingly agitated. Rustlers, who became known as the cow-boys, began to kill each other as well as innocent citizens. That October, tensions boiled over with Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne confronting the Tombstone marshal, Virgil Earp, and the suddenly deputized Wyatt and Morgan Earp and shotgun-toting Doc Holliday.

Clavin peers behind decades of legend surrounding the story of Tombstone to reveal the true story of the drama and violence that made it famous. TOMBSTONE also digs deep into the vendetta ride that followed the tragic gunfight, when Wyatt and Warren Earp, along with Holliday went vigilante to track down the likes of Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Brocius, and other cowboys who had cowardly gunned down his brothers. That “vendetta ride” would make the myth of Wyatt Earp complete and punctuate the struggle for power in the American frontier’s last boom town.

ABOUT THE AUTHORTOM CLAVIN is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and has worked as a newspaper and web site editor, magazine writer, TV and radio commentator, and a reporter for The New York Times. He has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, and National Newspaper Association. His books include The Heart of Everything That Is, Halsey’s Typhoon, and Reckless. He lives in Sag Harbor, NY.


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Renowned New York Times bestselling historian and presidential scholar Robert Dallek believes that President Trump is ignorant of the histories of the presidencies that came before 1993. “It was only with the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama presidencies,” Dallek says, “that he saw vulnerabilities he hoped to exploit to become president.” But while Trump’s 2016 election has presented extreme new challenges to American republican ideals, the triumphs and failures of some of the great modern presidents that came before in some ways cleared the path to Donald Trump. In HOW DID WE GET HERE?: From Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump (Harper), Dallek offers an incisive look at ten twentieth century administrations that changed the presidency—for good or ill—and played a role in bringing us to our present moment.

Robert Dallek is the author of Camelot’s Court: Inside the Kennedy White House, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 and Nixon and Kissinger, among other books. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, and Vanity Fair. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Society of American Historians, for which he served as president in 2004-2005. He lives in Washington, D.C.


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From Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday, comes an electrifying behind-the-scenes account of the 116 days leading up to the American attack on Hiroshima.

April 12, 1945: After years of bloody conflict in Europe and the Pacific, America is stunned by news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. In an instant, Vice President Harry Truman, who has been kept out of war planning and knows nothing of the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop the world’s first atomic bomb, must assume command of a nation at war on multiple continents—and confront one of the most consequential decisions in history. Countdown 1945 tells the gripping true story of the turbulent days, weeks, and months to follow, leading up to August 6, 1945, when Truman gives the order to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.

In Countdown 1945, Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday, takes readers inside the minds of the iconic and elusive figures who join the quest for the bomb, each for different reasons: the legendary Albert Einstein, who eventually calls his vocal support for the atomic bomb “the one great mistake in my life”; lead researcher J. Robert “Oppie” Oppenheimer and the Soviet spies who secretly infiltrate his team; the fiercely competitive pilots of the plane selected to drop the bomb; and many more.

Perhaps most of all, Countdown 1945 is the story of an untested new president confronting a decision that he knows will change the world forever. Truman’s journey during these 116 days is a story of high drama: from the shock of learning of the bomb’s existence, to the conflicting advice he receives from generals like Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Marshall, to wrestling with the devastating carnage that will result if he gives the order to use America’s first weapon of mass destruction.

But Countdown 1945 is more than a book about the atomic bomb. It’s also an unforgettable account of the lives of ordinary American and Japanese civilians in wartime—from “Calutron Girls” like Ruth Sisson in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to ten-year-old Hiroshima resident Hideko Tamura, who survives the blast at ground zero but loses her mother and later immigrates to the United States, where she lives to this day—as well as American soldiers fighting in the Pacific, waiting in fear for the order to launch a possible invasion of Japan.

Told with vigor, intelligence, and humanity, Countdown 1945 is the definitive account of one of the most significant moments in history.


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The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going, one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated.

In CULT OF GLORY: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers (Viking) Doug J. Swanson does justice to the Rangers’ heroic moments while also showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors and for officially sanctioned violence. He demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages--including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians--into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood. This book documents, for the first time, the Rangers’ efforts to suppress the NAACP in Texas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Doug J. Swanson was for many years an investigative reporter at the Dallas Morning News. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing, and a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. Swanson currently teaches journalism in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh. His previous nonfiction book, Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, the Texas Gangster who Created Vegas Poker, was published by Viking in 2014. Swanson spent five years researching and writing Cult of Glory, much of it in the Texas state archives. Some of the records he used have never been published.


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The first major biography of “a poet of the people” in 50 years, CROSS OF SNOW: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow by Nicholas Basbanes.

Cross of Snowgets its title from a sonnet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow(1807-1882) wrote toward the end of his life to commemorate the devastating loss eighteen years earlier of his beloved wife Fanny, the victim of a frightful domestic accident that in an instant turned an idyllic relationship into a scene of unspeakable horror. For his central image, Longfellow described a massive mountain “in the distant west” that displays a snow-encrusted symbol of contrition on its side year-round—a cross of snow—which he compared to the figurative one he wore around his neck in unending grief, “changeless since the day she died.” The 14-line poem was so deeply personal, he placed it among his private papers, where it was found after his death, and published posthumously by his younger brother Samuel.

Nicholas A. Basbanes is the author of ten critically acclaimed works of cultural history, with a particular emphasis on various aspects of books and book culture. A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books, his first book, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction in 1995, and was a New York Times Notable Book. On Paper: The Everything of Its Two Thousand Year History (2013, Knopf) was one of three finalists for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and was named a best book of the year by seven major publications.

In 2016, he was awarded a Public Scholar research fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities, his second NEH grant, for work on Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.. He also writes the “Gently Mad” column for Fine Books & Collections magazine, lectures widely on book related subjects, and is a frequent contributor to Humanities magazine and other publications. He and his wife Constance live in North Grafton, Massachusetts.


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In her newest novel, ALWAYS THE LAST TO KNOW (Berkley Trade Paperback Original), Higgins tackles fractured family relationships through the story of a quietly unhappy nuclear family trapped in a narrative of their own making. Barb and John Frost, who entered marriage deeply in love, have become two people coexisting in the same house. Barb’s pride and joy is her favorite daughter, the beautiful and successful Juliet. John’s purest love belongs to his free-spirited and artistic younger daughter Sadie. When John has a stroke, all their lives are turned upside down and secrets that have lived below the surface bubble up.

The entire family finds itself reeling as their comfortable numbness explodes. In the aftermath, Sadie moves back home to care for John fulltime and is confronted by the man she loved and left. Barb focuses on her work in local government to avoid coming to terms with long-held resentments and her new reality. And Juliet battles panic attacks as she juggles supporting her mother, husband and children while climbing the corporate ladder at an architectural firm.

John’s medical emergency forces the Frost women to admit they’ve been passive participants in their lives for years, afraid to embrace change and uncertainty. None of them feel truly fulfilled, successful or happy. But each can—and does—change her story. Their choices are messy, brave, and achingly human.

As with all the best summer novels, ALWAYS THE LAST TO KNOW immerses you in the lives of its characters and will have you cheering in your beach chair and laughing by the pool as you follow the Frosts down a path where anything—fulfillment, pain, failure and success—is possible.

You know, like life.

Kristan Higgins is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty novels, which have been translated into more than two dozen languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books have received many awards and accolades, and she is a six-time nominee for The Kirkus Prize for best work of fiction. Kristan is also a cohost of the Crappy Friends podcast, which discusses the often complex dynamics of female friendships, with her friend and fellow writer, Joss Dey. Higgins lives in Connecticut with her family. Connect with Kristan online at KristanHiggins.com, twitter.com/Kristan_Higgins, and facebook.com/KristanHigginsBooks.


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THE ANCESTOR by Danielle Trussoni —her triumphant return to fiction a decade after the critically acclaimed publication of her breakout novels Angelolgy and Angeloplis. As the horror columnist for the New York Times Book Review, Trussoni has a unique window into the world in which THE ANCESTOR is set. Her mastery and understanding of the genre has influenced this newest release with a captivating blend of taut suspense and gothic elements that will “enrapture readers” (Publishers Weekly) and “sweep readers up in awe and wonder” (Library Journal).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Danielle Trussoni is the New York Times, USA Today, and Sunday Times Top Ten bestselling author of the supernatural thrillers Angelology and Angelopolis. She currently writers the Horror column for the New York Times Book Review and has recently served as a jurist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Trussoni holds an MFA in Fiction from the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she won the Michener-Copernicus Society of America award. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages. She lives in the Hudson River Valley with her family and her pug Fly. For more information please visit www.danielletrussoni.com   


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Among the extraordinary group of early Americans who became known as the Founding Fathers, James Monroe may be the least recognized.  But with the remarkable range of his service to the nation, and his extraordinary skill in shepherding the young nation through one of its most perilous periods, he and his achievements find new resonance and relevance in our own time.  Now, drawing on newly available primary sources, acclaimed biographer and historian Tim McGrath presents the first biography of the fifth president in more than a decade, JAMES MONROE: A Life (Dutton).

Tim McGrath is a two-time winner of the Commodore John Barry Book Award, as well as the author of the critically acclaimed biography John Barry: An American Hero in the Age of Sail, and Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America's Revolution at Sea, recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature.  He lives outside of Philadelphia.   


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About the Book:

The Osiris Foundation is located in a vast rural area near the beautiful but remote Snoqualmie Gap in Washington State. It bills itself as a faith-based organization that helps troubled people overcome addiction and other problems. Its enigmatic and charismatic leader is known only “Master Eli,” who claims to have cheated death and become a prophet for a new age. But just who is this strange man and what hypnotic power does he hold over his flock?

Shaw is drawn to the Osiris Foundation when he tracks down two young men who have been charged with a hate crime. Both of them are on their way to the cult’s compound when Shaw finds them, and when one of them kills himself rather that get captured, and the other refuses to reveal any details about where they are headed, Shaw knows what he must do: It’s time to go undercover. Adopting a false identity, Shaw poses as a new Osiris recruit to unlock the secrets lurking deep within their walls. But, as he’ll soon find out, this is a cult whose members are willing to kill to keep outsiders from learning what they are up to. And worse still, Master Eli even controls local law enforcement, so Shaw will be totally alone in this mission. That’s how powerful this cult is.

About the Author

Jeffery Deaver is the #1 international bestselling author of more than thirty-five novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages. His first novel featuring Lincoln Rhyme, The Bone Collector, was made into a major motion picture starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He's received or been shortlisted for a number of awards around the world, including Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers and the Steel Dagger Award from the Crime Writers' Association in the United Kingdom. In 2014 he was the recipient of three lifetime achievement awards. A former journalist, folksinger, and attorney, he was born outside of Chicago and has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University.

Photo Credit: Gunner Publications LLC


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As November approaches, foreign interference in our election process weighs heavily on our public conscience. Novelist David Pepper—who in 2015 was unanimously elected Chairman of the Democratic Party of Ohio—lends his singular political expertise and sharp storytelling powers to a twisty, cautionary thriller—THE VOTER FILE —that sounds the alarm about election meddling and the loss of American freedoms. No one is better suited than Pepper—who President Bill Clinton named as one of his favorite authors in the New York Times Book Review—to craft the disturbingly plausible scenario that unravels with heart-racing pace.  

About the Author David Pepper is the author of The People’s House and The Wingman, both of which feature Jack Sharpe. He earned his B.A. from Yale University and his J.D. from Yale Law School. He has clerked for a judge on the United States Court of Appeals; served in local elected office in Ohio; worked for major law firms; and taught election and voting rights law. Prior to law school, Pepper worked in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. In 2015, he was unanimously elected Chairman of the Democratic Party of Ohio.  


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In the summer of 1932, at the beginning of the turbulent decade that would remake America, baseball fans were treated to one of the most thrilling seasons in the history of the sport. As the nation drifted deeper into the Great Depression and reeled from social unrest, baseball was a diversion for a troubled country—and yet the world of baseball was marked by the same edginess that pervaded the national scene. On‑the‑field fights were as common as double plays. Amid the National League pennant race, Cubs’ shortstop Billy Jurges was shot by showgirl Violet Popovich in a Chicago hotel room. When the regular season ended, the Cubs and Yankees clashed in what would be Babe Ruth’s last appearance in the fall classic. After the Cubs lost the first two games in New York, the series resumed in Chicago at Wrigley Field, with Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt cheering for the visiting Yankees from the box seats behind the Yankees’ dugout. In the top of the fifth inning the game took a historic turn. As Ruth was jeered mercilessly by Cubs players and fans, he gestured toward the outfield and then blasted a long home run. After Ruth circled the bases, Roosevelt exclaimed, “Unbelievable!” Ruth’s homer set off one of baseball’s longest‑running and most intense debates: did Ruth, in fact, call his famous home run? Rich with historical context and detail, The Called Shot dramatizes the excitement of a baseball season during one of America’s most chaotic summers.

Thomas Wolf has written numerous articles on baseball history and is the coauthor of Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland.


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A leading expert reexamines history to offer a stunningly original portrait of Hitler as a competent military commander and strategist

After Germany’s humiliating World War II defeat, numerous German generals published memoirs claiming that their country’s brilliant military leadership had been undermined by the Führer’s erratic decision making. The author of three highly acclaimed books on the era, Stephen Fritz upends this characterization of Hitler as an ill-informed fantasist and demonstrates the ways in which his strategy was coherent and even competent.

That Hitler saw World War II as the only way to retrieve Germany’s fortunes and build an expansionist Thousand-Year Reich is uncontroversial. But while his generals did sometimes object to Hitler’s tactics and operational direction, they often made the same errors in judgment and were in agreement regarding larger strategic and political goals. A necessary volume for understanding the influence of World War I on Hitler’s thinking, this work is also an eye-opening reappraisal of major events like the invasion of Russia and the battle for Normandy.

Stephen G. Fritz is professor at East Tennessee State University. His books include Frontsoldaten: The German Soldier in World War II and Ostkrieg: Hitler’s War of Extermination in the East. He lives in Johnson City, TN.

Also of Interest


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Based on exclusive, fresh reporting, HUNTING WHITEY is the thrilling, definitive inside story of the pursuit, capture, and killing of legendary South Boston mob boss, James “Whitey” Bulger, detailing as never before his years on the run, how he evaded arrest, and his brutal murder in prison.

Sherman and Wedge draw on exclusive interviews and exhaustive investigative reportage to tell the complete story of Whitey Bulger, one of the most notorious crime bosses in American history and a longtime FBI informant. The leader of Boston’s Winter Hill Gang and #1 on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, Bulger was indicted for nineteen counts of murder, racketeering, narcotics distribution, and extortion. But it was his sixteen-year flight from justice on the eve of his arrest that made him a legend and exposed deep corruption within the FBI.

Interweaving the perspectives of Bulger, his family and cohorts, and law enforcement—including former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, HUNTING WHITEY explains how this dangerous criminal evaded capture for nearly two decades and shines a spotlight on the dedicated detectives, federal agents, and prosecutors involved in bringing him to justice. It is also a fascinating, detailed portrait of both Bulger’s trial and his time in prison—including shocking new details about his 2018 death at Hazelton Prison less than twenty-four hours after his arrival.

Unlike other books chronicling Bulger’s life and crimes, HUNTING WHITEY offers unprecedented access to inside sources in this case and chronicles the story of his life on the run, his capture, and his eventual murder. This is the definitive book on Whitey Bulger.

Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge are one of the premier non-fiction writing teams telling stories out of Boston. Together, they co-wrote the definitive story of the Boston Marathon bombings in Boston Strong: A City’s Triumph Over Tragedy, which was adapted for the Mark Wahlberg film Patriots Day. They also wrote Ice Bucket Challenge: Pete Frates and the Fight against ALS, which is in development as a Netflix feature film, and the New York Times bestselling 12: The Inside Story of Tom Brady’s Fight for Redemption. They live in Boston.


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With IN DEEP: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth about America’s “Deep State” [W. W. Norton & Company], two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist David Rohde investigates whether an American “deep state” exists. Today, three-quarters of Americans polled believe that a group of unelected government and military officials are secretly manipulating national policy. To conservatives, the “deep state” is an ever-growing government bureaucracy, an “administrative state” that relentlessly encroaches on the individual rights of Americans. Liberals fear the “military-industrial complex”—a cabal of generals and defense contractors who they believe routinely push the country into endless wars. Americans increasingly distrust the politicians, lobbyists, and journalists who they believe unilaterally set the country’s political agenda. American democracy faces its biggest crisis of legitimacy in a half century.

About the Author:

David Rohde, two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, is an executive editor of The New Yorker website, an MSNBC contributor, and a former New York Times, Reuters, and Christian Science Monitor reporter. He lives in New York City with his family.


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Willie Mays has long been recognized as baseball’s greatest all-around player. In the history of the sport, few have been as inspiring as Mr. Mays, who uplifted many generations since he first captivated the baseball world with his unparalleled combination of skills, flair and joyful exuberance. This tremendous, heartfelt new book, co-authored with John Shea, and told in Mr. Mays’s voice, 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid, (St. Martin’s Publishing Group), is full of poignant and timeless stories and reflections from Mr. Mays, as well as tales from many others who played major roles in his career and life.

About the Authors: Willie Mays, forever the youthful Say Hey Kid, was a major league center fielder for 22 seasons with the New York Giants, San Francisco Giants, and New York Mets, and played for the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro Leagues. A Hall of Famer who is considered the greatest all-around talent in the game’s history, he continues to be actively involved with the San Francisco Giants and his Say Hey Foundation, which is dedicated to underprivileged youth positive opportunities and safer communities.

John Shea is the author of four baseball books, including Rickey Henderson’s autobiography, Off Base: Confessions of a Thief. He is an award-winning national baseball writer at the San Francisco Chronicle and appears on the MLB Network.


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At the tender age of twenty-four, Lou Gehrig decided to tell the remarkable story of his life and career. He was one of the most famous athletes in the country, in the midst of a record-breaking season with the legendary 1927 World Series-winning Yankees. In an effort to grow Lou’s star, pioneering sports agent Christy Walsh arranged for Lou’s tale of baseball greatness to syndicate in newspapers across the country. Until now, those columns were largely forgotten and lost to history.

Lou comes alive in this inspiring memoir. It is a heartfelt rags-to-riches tale about a dirt poor kid from New York who became one of the most revered baseball players of all time.

Fourteen years after his account, Lou would tragically die from ALS, a neuromuscular disorder now known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. His poignant autobiography is followed by an insightful biographical essay by historian Alan D. Gaff. Here is Lou—Hall of Famer, All Star, and MVP—back at bat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alan D. Gaff is an independent scholar and the author of many books, including Lou Gehrig: The Lost Memoir, Bayonets in the Wilderness, Blood in the Argonne, and On Many a Bloody Field, hailed as “a masterpiece of Civil War scholarship” (The Bookwatch). He lives in Indiana.


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Set among the steep streets and stunning vistas of San Francisco, The Laundress: A Novel(May 19, 2020; She Writes Press; paperback original) by Barbara Sapienza is a coming-of-age story for anyone who’s ever sought to understand where they came from in order to figure out who they’re meant to become.

About the Author

Barbara Sapienza, PhD, is a retired clinical psychologist and an alumna of San Francisco State University’s creative writing master’s program. She writes and paints, nourished by her spiritual practices of meditation, tai chi, and dance. Her family, friends, and grandchildren are her teachers. Her first novel, Anchor Out (She Writes Press, 2017) received an IPPY bronze medal for Best Regional Fiction, West Coast. Sapienza lives in Sausalito, CA, with her husband.


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LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: Thirteen Days to Washington ( Simon & Schuster) by Ted Widmer is a deep history of thirteen days in the life of Abraham Lincoln as he boarded a train in Springfield, IL and journeyed to Washington, DC to take the oath of office and be sworn in as the sixteenth president of the United States. Widmer, a Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York and former speechwriter in the Clinton White House, offers “a colorful, richly detailed overture to Lincoln's odyssey” (Kirkus Reviews) and “a riveting piece of history and a first-rate read” (Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Chernow).

The country had never been more divided when Lincoln assumed office in 1861, and his journey to Washington was fraught with danger. The government was on the verge of collapse, and Southerners had vowed to prevent Lincoln’s inauguration by any means necessary. Stopping in numerous cities throughout Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and finally Washington, Lincoln’s safe delivery was, as Widmer writes, “A powerful symbol for the survival of democracy in America.”

Ted Widmer is a Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College of the City University of New York. He writes actively about American history inThe Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, where he helped create the Disunion feature about the Civil War. From 1997 to 2001, he worked in the White House as a foreign policy speech writer.


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My Kind of People(Atria), Lisa Duffy’s third breathtaking and sensitive novel, will restore your hope in the world. For fans of Celeste Ng and Mary Beth Keane comes a profound story about the power of community as a members of a small New England island town rally around a recently orphaned ten-year-old girl.

My Kind of People isBig Little Lies meets an Elin Hilderbrand novel, delving into themes of love, heartbreak, deceit, scandal, and mental health. Emotionally complex, deeply moving, and ultimately uplifting, you’ll be immersed in this small town on Ichabod Island, full of the messiness of life and human resilience. This is a storyabout starting over, the strength of community, and what unites us all in the face of tragedy.


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THE LAST TRIAL by Scott Turow is the courtroom drama his fans have been waiting for: the culmination of two incredible lives in one explosive case, as Turow’s beloved character, Sandy Stern, returns to the Kindle Country courtroom to defend one of his oldest friends from ruinous charges.

In THE LAST TRIAL, Sandy Stern is a celebrated criminal defense lawyer nearing the end of his career. But when his lifelong friend, Dr. Kiril Pafko, a Nobel Prize winner and world- renowned cancer researcher, is faced with charges of insider trading, fraud, and murder and his life’s work is put into jeopardy, Stern decides to take on one last trial – one that could impact both of their legacies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Turow is the author of eleven bestselling works of fiction, including Testimony, Identical, Innocent, Presumed

Innocent, and The Burden of Proof, and two nonfiction books, including One L, about his experience as a law student. His

books have been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, and have been

adapted into movies and television projects. He has frequently contributed essays and op-ed pieces to publications such

as the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.


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James Patterson Tells the Story of the Kennedy Family

The House of Kennedy is a revealing, fascinating account of America’s most storied family, as told by America’s most trusted storyteller. You've read about Jack, Bobby, Joe, Rose, Kick, Ted, Jackie O, John, and JFK Jr. This is their true story.

James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller. He has created many enduring fictional characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Middle School, and I Funny. Among his notable literary collaborations are The President Is Missing, with President Bill Clinton, and the Max Einstein series, produced in partnership with the Albert Einstein Estate. Patterson’s writing career is characterized by a single mission: to prove that there is no such thing as a person who “doesn’t like to read,” only people who haven’t found the right book. He’s given over three million books to schoolkids and the military, donated more than seventy million dollars to support education, and endowed over five thousand college scholarships for teachers. The National Book Foundation recently presented Patterson with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, and he is also the recipient of an Edgar Award and six Emmy Awards. He lives in Florida with his family.


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An ambitious new history of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony, published for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s landing

In 1620, separatists from the Church of England set sail across the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. Understanding themselves as spiritual pilgrims, they left to preserve their liberty to worship God in accordance with their understanding of the Bible.

There exists, however, an alternative, more dispiriting version of their story. In it, the Pilgrims are religious zealots who persecuted dissenters and decimated Native peoples through warfare and by stealing their land. The Pilgrims’ definition of liberty was, in practice, very narrow.

Drawing on original research using underutilized sources, John G. Turner moves beyond these familiar narratives in his sweeping and authoritative new history of Plymouth Colony. Instead of depicting the Pilgrims as otherworldly saints or extraordinary sinners, he tells how a variety of English settlers and Native peoples engaged in a contest for the meaning of American liberty.

John G. Turner is professor of religious studies at George Mason University and the award-winning author of Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet.


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About WALK THE WIRE:

Decker and Jamison are ordered to investigate the death of a young woman, Irene Cramer, whose body was expertly autopsied and then dumped in the open—which is only the beginning of the oddities surrounding the case. As Decker and Jamison dig into Irene’s life, they are shocked to discover that the woman who worked as a prostitute by night was also a teacher for a local religious sect by day—a sect operating on land once owned by a mysterious government facility that looms over the community.

London is a town replete with ruthless business owners, shady government officials, and religious outsiders, all determined to keep their secrets from coming out. When other murders occur, Decker will need his extraordinary memory and detective skills, and the assistance of a surprising ally, to root out a killer and the forces behind Cramer’s death… before the boom town explodes.

BIO: DAVID BALDACCI is a global #1 bestselling author, and one of the world’s favorite storytellers. His books are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with over 150 million worldwide sales. His works have been adapted for both feature film and television. David Baldacci is also the cofounder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, he invites you to visit him at DavidBaldacci.com and his foundation at WishYouWellFoundation.org.


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On the face of it, Bono—U2’s frontman since 1978 and arguably one of the most recognizable people on the planet—is the very example of an engaged, progressive activist: headlining human rights benefits, conferring with world leaders, founding NGOs to help Africa’s poor. But in this new critique, religious studies scholar and U2 fan Chad Seales illuminates the often-ignored threads that run through and complicate the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s popular persona and promise—and that unconsciously inform the economic and spiritual frames his fans place on the world. An impressive reconsideration of Bono's legacy, from a man who still considers himself a fan:)


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In six intense, haunting short novels, Don Winslow returns to the themes that are the hallmarks of his acclaimed body of work—crime, corruption, vengeance, justice, loss, betrayal, guilt, and redemption—to explore the savagery and nobility that drive and define the human condition.

About the Author:  Don Winslow is the author of twenty-one acclaimed, award-winning international bestsellers, including the New York Times bestsellers The Force and The Border, the #1 international bestseller The Cartel, The Power of the Dog, Savages, and The Winter of Frankie Machine. Savages was made into a feature film by three-time Oscar-winning writer-director Oliver Stone. The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and The Border sold to FX in a major multi-million-dollar deal to air as a weekly television series beginning in 2020. A former investigator, antiterrorist trainer, and trial consultant, Winslow lives in California and Rhode Island. don-winslow.com

Facebook: @DonWinslowAuthor  Twitter: @donwinslow


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The US Constitution never established a presidential cabinet—the delegates to the Constitutional Convention explicitly rejected the idea. So how did George Washington create one of the most powerful bodies in the federal government? On November 26, 1791, George Washington convened his department secretaries—Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph—for the first cabinet meeting. Why did he wait two and a half years into his presidency to call his cabinet? Because the US Constitution did not create or provide for a presidential cabinet. Washington was on his own.


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Veteran journalist Toby Muse has witnessed up close each level of the cocaine underworld, fueled by the appetite for cocaine in America and Europe. In KILO: INSIDE THE DEADLIEST COCAINE CARTELS—FROM THE JUNGLES TO THE STREETS, he takes the reader inside Colombia’s notorious drug cartels to offer a never before look at the drug trade. Following a kilo of cocaine from its production in a clandestine laboratory to the smugglers who ship it abroad, he reveals the human lives behind the drug’s complicated legacy. With a 16 page insert of exclusive photos, KILO is particularly timely as the world, and the United States, struggles with a record harvest of cocaine that has resulted in purer drugs and led to a spike in overdoses.

Reporting on Colombia for the world’s most prestigious networks and publications, Muse gained unprecedented access to the extraordinary people who survive on the drug trade—farmers, smugglers, assassins—and the drug lords and their lovers controlling these multi-billion dollar enterprises. He also spent weeks with the US Coast Guard as they tried to stem the flow of drugs, seizing tons of cocaine on the vast Pacific Ocean. Uncovering stories of violence, sex, and money, he shows the allure and the madness of cocaine. And how the War on Drugs has been no match for cocaine.

Piercing this veiled world, KILO is a gripping portrait of a country struggling to end this deadly trade even as the riches flow. A human portrait of criminals and the shocking details of their lives, this is a chilling, unforgettable story that takes you deep into the belly of the beast.


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The definitive biography of Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees icon, winner of 10 World Series championships, and the most-quoted player in baseball history by Jon Pessah.


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New York Times bestselling author Erik Larson is known for expertly transporting readers to past worlds; even stories we think we know come to life in a different way in his hands. With his remarkable new work of nonfiction, THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE, Larson once again turns history into a thriller, taking us into the heart of war-torn England for the period of May 10, 1940, through May 10, 1941—Winston Churchill’s first year as prime minister.


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In THE BOY FROM THE WOODS, Harlan Coben creates the unforgettable character of Wilde, a man who

is a mystery to everyone, including himself.   Decades ago, Wilde was found as a boy living feral in the woods

with no memory of his past.  Now, thirty years later, he’s a highly trained ex-military operative who still knows

nothing about his personal history.   And he's back living in the same woods on the outskirts of town, content to

be an outcast with only a few deep connections to other people.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

With more than 75 million books in print worldwide, Harlan Coben is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of numerous suspense novels,

including Run Away, Don't Let Go, Home, and Fool Me Once, as well as the multi-award-winning Myron Bolitar series. His books are published in 44

languages around the globe and have been number one bestsellers in more than a dozen countries.  THE BOY FROM THE WOODS is his 32nd book.


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Football life lessons from one of our greatest coaches, who learned from his father –the legendary Bum Phillips.

Legendary football coach and Super Bowl champion Wade Phillips recalls his life in football and memories of his father, NFL head coach Bum Phillips.


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The improbable story of Luis Tiant—a living link to the earliest days of Fidel Castro’s regime, a Boston Red Sox legend, and the most qualified 20th Century pitcher not yet enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.


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“Reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale”(Kirkus Reviews), playwright Megan Campisi’s debut novel,SIN EATER( Atria), is an inventive exploration of history and womanhood in 16th century England—with a dystopian and eerily contemporary feminine twist.

When 14-year-old May is caught stealing, she receives a life sentence: rather than being hanged, she must become a Sin Eater—a shunned, silent woman, performing a funeral rite of consuming food that symbolizes each particular sin—from lust to rebellion to murder. This allows the dying to leave behind their sins, thus giving their souls access to heaven.


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Many are fascinated by the forensic techniques employed at crime scenes, but few know the origin story of these now taken-for-granted methods of solving murders and other misdeeds. AMERICAN SHERLOCK by journalist and documentary film producer Kate Winkler Dawson chronicles the revolutionary contributions of Edward Oscar Heinrich, who pioneered many of the forensic techniques used today.  Heinrich was one of the nation's first expert witnesses, working in a time when the turmoil of Prohibition led to sensationalized crime reporting and only a small, systematic study of evidence. Heinrich spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools that police still use today, including blood spatter analysis, ballistics, lie-detector tests, and the use of fingerprints as courtroom evidence. His work, though not without its serious--some would say fatal--flaws, changed the course of American criminal investigation.


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Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Frémont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America’s first great political couple

John C. Frémont, one of the United States’s leading explorers of the nineteenth century, was relatively unknown in 1842, when he commanded the first of his expeditions to the uncharted West. But in only a few years, he was one of the most acclaimed people of the age – known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States’s takeover of California from Mexico. He was not even 40 years old when Americans began naming mountains and towns after him. He had perfect timing, exploring the West just as it captured the nation’s attention. But the most important factor in his fame may have been the person who made it all possible: his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Inskeep is a cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio program in the United States, and of NPR’s Up First,one of the nation’s most popular podcasts. His reporting has taken him across the United States, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Pakistan, and China. His search for the full story behind the news has led him to history; he is the author of Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi and Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab,both published by Penguin Press.


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In Dean Koontz's new book: DEVOTED - 100,000 years of the human-dog bond leads to an evolutionary leap in a relationship that will change the world for the better - that is - if events in a Utah lab don’t first change it for the worse. Devoted is a breathless story of suspense and terror and also about the many ways people become devoted to one another and to dogs - and dogs to them!

About the Author: DEAN KOONTZ has been praised as a “literary juggler” by The Times (of London) for his deft ability to blend other genres—horror, romance, humor, science fiction, and mystery—into his acclaimed suspense thrillers. Lauded by The New York Times as “psychologically complex, masterful, and satisfying,” Koontz’s work has been described by The New Orleans Times-Picayune as “scary, worthwhile reading,” “lyrical, without being naïve or romantic” in its portrayal of a “grotesque world, much like that of Flannery O’Connor or Walker Percy….” His first novel was published two years after he graduated from college. Since then, moving fluidly between genres—suspense, horror, science-fiction, love stories—he has published many novels, novellas, and short fiction, and a memoir of his dog Trixie, A Big Little Life. Koontz garnered his first bestseller with Demon Seed in 1977 when paperback sales of his 1973 novel got a boost from the film adaptation. Whispers, his breakthrough 1980 suspense novel, was his first on The New York Times bestseller list. Since then, 14 Koontz novels have been #1 New York Times bestsellers in hardcover, making Koontz one of only a dozen writers to have hit that milestone. Sixteen of his books have risen to the #1 spot in paperback. Today, Dean Koontz lives in Southern California with his wife Gerda, and their beloved golden retriever Elsa.


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THE GIRL IN WHITE GLOVES is a vivid reimagining of the exhilarating and sensationalized life of Princess Grace of Monaco from Kerri Maher, the acclaimed author of The Kennedy Debutante. Maher’s meticulously researched novel, The Kennedy Debutante, earned Maher both critical and popular acclaim. People Magazine called it “a riveting reimagining of a true tale of forbidden love,” and USA Today praised this “well-paced and engaging novel.” In her new novel, THE GIRL IN WHITE GLOVES, Maher once again shines a spotlight onto the inner life of an almost mythical female historical figure: actress and princess—and fiction’s newest “it-girl”—Grace Kelly. When the world watched Meghan Markle marry Prince Harry, it seemed impossible: an American actress on a rising star giving up her aspiring career to live life as a royal abroad. But Markle was not the first to follow this path: Grace Kelly paved the way.

Kerri Maher is also the author of This Is Not A Writing Manual: Notes for the Young Writer in the Real World under the name Kerri Majors. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and founded YARN, an award-winning literary journal of short-form YA writing. For many years a professor of writing, she now writes full time and lives with her daughter in Massachusetts where apple picking and long walks in the woods are especially fine.


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JASON “TIMBUKTU” DIAKITÉ is one of Sweden’s chart topping hip hop artists winning 8 Swedish Grammy awards, 4 P3 Guld (Swedish radio) awards and has performed all over the world, from Sweden to Africa and from the Roxy in Los Angeles to Nobel Peace Prize award ceremonies!

Born in Sweden to American parents - an African American dad and a white mom - Jason's book - A DROP OF MIDNIGHT- has already sold thousands of copies in Sweden and goes on sale in the US next month. It is also being adapted into a stage performance premiering this month at Harlem Stage in New York City.

In the book - Jason pens his very intimate journey of self-discovery which stretches from South Carolina slavery to 21 century Sweden - and how music and hip hop has impacted his life.

About the Author: JASON “TIMBUKTU” DIAKITÉ is one of Sweden’s most well-known hip-hop artists. Born in Lund to American parents—an African American dad and a white mom—he has released eight solo albums and numerous singles, the majority of which have reached gold or platinum status. His accolades include eight Swedish Grammy awards and four P3 Guld (Swedish radio) awards. He has performed all over the world, from Africa to Svalbard, from the Apollo in New York City to the Roxy in Los Angeles and at the Polar Music Prize and Nobel Peace Prize award ceremonies. Jason is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir A Drop of Midnight, which has sold more than one hundred thousand copies in Sweden and has been adapted into a stage performance premiering in March 2020 at Harlem Stage. www.adropfofmidnight.com


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Thirteen years ago, Kristina Kuzmič , was a broke and defeated mother of two; recently divorced; juggling jobs and sleeping on the floor next to her kids. She never imagined that a lo-fi cooking show she pieced together to reach other moms in the trenches would get Oprah’s attention. Today, she speaks directly to her 2.8 million Facebook followers in honest, funny parenting videos on topics from “Mind your own Motherhood” to a satirical PSA “4 Reasons women should NEVER breastfeed in public.” Her star is rapidly rising, and she recently took her message of acceptance and resilience on the road to 22 sold-out cities. Her witty, knowing, and sympathetic voice is captured on the page in her first book HOLD ON, BUT DON’T HOLD STILL: Hope and Humor from My Seriously Flawed Life.

Kristina Kuzmič was born in Croatia and is a world-renowned speaker known for her unique insight and humor on family-related topics. She currently lives in Southern California with her husband, where her more important, rewarding, and exhausting careers include being a sanitation engineer, chef, chauffeur, and conflict-resolution guru for her three (mostly satisfied) clients—her children.


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ABOUT THE BOOK:

Operation Treadstone is a top-secret CIA Black Ops program that made uses behavior modification to turn government agents into virtually superhuman assassins. The agents can lead normal lives until “activated,” at which point they become killing machines deployed to undertake nearly impossible missions. Treadstone made Jason Bourne an unstoppable force, but he's not the only one.

Treadstone has nearly ruined Adam Hayes. They trained him to be a nearly invincible assassin, but it also cost him his family. Adam only wants normalcy, but the savage voices in his head still haunt him and control his responses. Now living in rural Washington state and scraping by as a carpenter, his marriage is a shambles and he hates being separated from his young son, but at least he has left Treadstone in the past…until he receives a mysterious email from a former colleague stating, “By the time you get this I’ll be dead…”. Soon after, Adam is attacked by an unknown hit team at his job site.

Now, Adam is wholly sucked back into the Treadstone universe and must regain the skills they taught him––lightning reflexes and a cold conscience––in order to discover who the would-be killers are, and why they have come after him now. Are his pursuers enemies from a long-ago mission? Rival intelligence agents? Or, perhaps, someone inside Treadstone? His search will lead him to the highest levels of government and place him once more in the path of the extreme danger he thought he’d left behind.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joshua Hood is the author of Warning Order and Clear by Fire. He graduated from the University of Memphis before joining the military and spending five years in the 82nd Airborne Division. He was a team leader in the 3-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment in Iraq from 2005-2006 where he conducted combat operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. From 2007-2008, Hood served as a squad leader with the 1-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Afghanistan where he was decorated for valor in Operation Furious Pursuit. On his return to civilian life he was a sniper team leader on a full time SWAT team in Memphis, TN, where he was awarded the lifesaving medal. Currently he works as the Director of Veteran Outreach for the American Warrior Initiative.

Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series––The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum––among others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001.


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In FRANKLIN & WASHINGTON: The Founding Partnership (William Morrow), Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson delivers a masterful, first-of-its-kind dual biography of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, revealing their partnership’s centrality to the American founding—and their enduring relevance. Vastly different men, Benjamin Franklin—abolitionist freethinker from the urban North—and George Washington— slaveholding general from the agrarian South—were the indispensable authors of American independence and the two key partners in the attempt to craft a more perfect union at the Constitutional Convention, held in Franklin’s Philadelphia and presided over by Washington. And yet their teamwork has been little remarked upon in the centuries since.

Author Bio:

Edward J. Larson received the Pulitzer Prize in History for Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion. He is the coauthor of Modern Library’s The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison and the author of The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783–1789, and A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign. He was an inaugural Library Fellow at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington. Larson is University Professor of history and holds the Hugh & Hazel Darling Chair in Law at Pepperdine University. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and received his PhD in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Larson travels widely as a media commentator, visiting instructor, and guest speaker. An Ohio native, Larson now lives in California.


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Michael P. Balzano, Ph.D., the author of DYSLEXIC: My Journey, was a high-school drop out who couldn’t hold down a job. The son of working-class immigrants who lived pay check-to-paycheck, Balzano was known as “Crazy Mikey” for his unruly behavior. He was thrown out of one Catholic school, a public school, and the military. He lost dozens of minimum-wage jobs for his disruptive behavior. Not one of his teachers recognized that Balzano had a learning disability, which was the source of his bad behavior.

From his earliest days, when Balzano looked at the printed page, the letters appeared to him in reverse order. Had his teachers been trained to identify learning disabled students at the time he was in elementary school, it would have been clear that he was dyslexic. In DYSLEXIC, Balzano describes his life as an example of what other learning-disabled students can achieve. His book is a call to action for parents, teachers, and school counselors not only to recognize the signs of dyslexia and other learning disabilities, but also to understand the importance of alternative paths to success besides college.

Balzano went to college after he became a craftsman, and credits his success in life to entering an optical apprenticeship, which taught him self-discipline. He encourages learning-disabled students to consider careers in the trades or industrial arts and to enter college, if that is their goal, after entering apprenticeships in the trades. “An apprenticeship can change your child’s life,” says Balzano.

ABOUT MCHAEL P. BALZANOMichael P. Balzano was a high-school dropout and garbage man before earning his doctoral degree from Georgetown University. He received a Ph.D. in political theory with distinction from Georgetown University. He was the advisor to six presidents on workforce issues including Presidents George H. W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Bill Clinton. He was the director of the Peace Corp from 1974-1977. He is presently the Director of National Workforce Coalition. For more information, https://www.michaelpbalzano.com


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Appearing out of nowhere to horrify the quiet resort town of Sanibel Island, Florida, dozens of identical, ordinary-looking shoes float in on the tide and are washed up on the tropical beach–each one with a crudely severed human foot inside.

Called away from vacation elsewhere in the state, Agent Pendergast reluctantly agrees to visit the crime scene–and, despite himself, is quickly drawn in by the incomprehensible puzzle. An early pathology report only adds to the mystery. With an ocean of possibilities confronting the investigation, no one is sure what happened, why, or from where the feet originated. And they desperately need to know: are the victims still alive?

In short order, Pendergast finds himself facing the most complex and inexplicable challenge of his career: a tangled thread of evidence that spans seas and traverses continents, connected to one of the most baffling mysteries in modern medical science. Through shocking twists and turns, all trails lead back to a powerful adversary with a sadistic agenda and who–in a cruel irony–ultimately sees in Pendergast the ideal subject for their malevolent research.


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Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock met on May 12, 1975 and formed Air Supply.The band recently performed their 5000th concert in Las Vegas. Last month they were proclaimed the top 5 Greatest Aussie Bands of All Time. They perform about 130 concerts each year, including this Thursday night at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.

I talked to Graham about songwriting, how the band has lasted, and their very first tour with Rod Stewart. Photo credit: Denise Truscello.


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About MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES:

When a devoted teacher comes under pressure for her progressive curriculum and a helicopter mom goes viral on social media, two women at odds with each other find themselves in similar predicaments, having to battle back from certain social ruin.

Isobel Johnson has spent her career in Liston Heights sidestepping the community’s high-powered families. But when she receives a threatening voicemail accusing her of Anti-Americanism and a liberal agenda, she’s in the spotlight. Meanwhile, Julia Abbott, obsessed with the casting of the school’s winter musical, makes an error in judgment that has far-reaching consequences for her entire family.

Brought together by the sting of public humiliation, Isobel and Julia learn firsthand how entitlement and competition can go too far, thanks to a secret Facebook page created as an outlet for parent grievances. The Liston Heights High student body will need more than a strong sense of school spirit to move past these campus dramas in an engrossing debut novel that addresses parents behaving badly and teenagers speaking up, even against their own families.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathleen West is a veteran middle and high-school teacher. She graduated with a degree in English from Macalester College and holds a Master's degree in literacy education from the University of Minnesota. She lives in Minneapolis with her hilarious husband, two sporty sons, and very bad goldendoodle.


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Imagine an event that brings hundreds of Members of Congress—from both chambers and parties— together for an evening to learn about and revel in American history. Not only is it true, it’s happened more than 38 times over the past six years.

In 2013, David Rubenstein, philanthropist and co-founder of The Carlyle Group, approached the Librarian of Congress with an idea for an event series in which Members of Congress could put politics aside and immerse themselves in the history of the nation. Thereafter began the Congressional Dialogue series: a dinner event held several times a year during which historic artifacts are exhibited and Rubenstein interviews bestselling and award-winning authors and historians for a Congressional audience. Now, in Rubenstein’s TheAmerican Story: Conversations with Master Historians (available October 29, 2019), these compelling conversations with the biggest names in American history are presented for all to learn and enjoy.

In this lively collection of dialogues, esteemed historians explore the subjects they intimately know and understand. There’s Ron Chernow on Alexander Hamilton, Walter Isaacson on Benjamin Franklin, Doris Kearns Goodwin on Abraham Lincoln, Taylor Branch on Martin Luther King Jr, Chief Justice John A. Roberts Jr. on the Supreme Court, and more. With encyclopedic knowledge on their respective subjects, these experts answer questions like: How close did the world come to its first nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis? Why has John Adams long been given so much less public praise and attention than the other Founding Fathers? How did Ronald Reagan, a former B-movie actor who failed twice to get his party’s presidential nomination, become one of the most consequential presidents of the latter half of the twentieth century?

Rubenstein, alifelong history enthusiast, has become an insightful and revealing interviewer through his role as President of the Economic Club of Washington, DC and as host of Bloomberg’s The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations. He coined the phrase “patriotic philanthropy” and tirelessly advocates for causes that elevate history’s importance and accessibility in our nation. Rubenstein has purchased rare copies of historic documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Magna Carta to ensure they’re put on public display at places like the Smithsonian and the National Archives. He’s helped finance the restorations of historical landmarks like Washington Monument, Monticello, and the Lincoln Memorial so people may visit and be inspired to learn more about American history. In this vein, Rubenstein will donate all royalty revenues from sales of The American Story to the Library of Congress’s Literacy Awards.

About the author: David M. Rubenstein is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful investment firms. Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge, and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award, among other philanthropic awards. Mr. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show on Bloomberg TV and PBS. He lives in Maryland.


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Piper Manning’s about as tough as they come, she’s had to be. She raised her siblings and they’ve thankfully flown the coop. All she has to do is finish fixing up the lake house her grandparents left her, sell it, and then she’s free.

When a massive storm hits, she runs into a tall, dark and brooding stranger, Camden Reid. There’s a spark there, one that shocks her. Surprising her further, her sister and brother return, each of them holding their own secrets. The smart move would be for Piper to ignore them all but Cam unleashes emotions deep inside of her that she can’t deny, making her yearn for something she doesn’t understand. And her siblings…well, they need each other.

Only when the secrets come out, it changes everything Piper thinks she knows about her family, herself…and Cam. Can she find a way to outrun the demons? The answer is closer than she thinks—just as the new life she craves may have already begun.

New York Times Bestselling Author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold, and visit her website, ww.jillshalvis.com, for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures.


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Few of us realize that much of our language in the workplace inhibits creative problem-solving and escalates uncertainty and stress. In both high-pressure situations and everyday scenarios, in each meeting and email, we have the opportunity to empower (or disempower) our colleagues. In Turn the Ship Around!, former US Navy Captain David Marquet, told the incredible story of abandoning command-and-control leadership on his submarine and empowering his crew to turn the worst performing submarine to the best performer in the fleet. In LEADERSHIP IS LANGUAGE, you'll learn how choosing your words can dramatically improve decision-making and execution on your team


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In her electrifying, highly anticipated debut novel, Followers (Graydon House), journalist Megan Angelo imagines a world where our collective celebrity obsession and device-driven lifestyle almost get the best of us.

Megan Angelo’s writing has appeared in publications like the New York Times (where she helped launch city comedy coverage), Glamour (where she was a contributing editor and wrote a column on women and television) and Elle (where she has written about everything from Lauren Conrad’s Instagram to NRA TV). She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and three kids. Followers is her first novel.


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In SIZING PEOPLE UP, Dreeke shares his simple, six-step system to help predict anyone’s behavior based on their words, goals, patterns of action, and the situation at hand. For instance, a colleague might have a strong moral code, but do they believe your relationship will be long-term? Even the most upstanding person can betray your trust if they don’t see themselves tied to you or your desired result in the long term. How can you determine whether someone has both the skill and will to do what they’ve said they’re going to do? Behaviors as subtle as how they take notes will reveal their reliability.

Robin Dreeke entered federal law enforcement in 1997 after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy and serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. He received advanced training and operational experience in social psychology and in the practical applications of the science of relationship development. Eventually he rose to direct the behavioral analysis program at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Dreeke recently retired as an agent of the FBI. He is the author ofIt’s Not All About “Me” and The Code of Trust.


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An Arizona native, Kiley Reid is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was the recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship. Her short stories have been featured and are forthcoming in Ploughshares, December, New South, and Lumina, where her short story was the first-place winner in the 2017 Flash Prose Contest. In Summer 2018, she attended the Cuttyhunk Island Residency as the recipient of the Paul Cuffee Scholarship. SUCH A FUN AGE is her first novel, with film and TV rights already acquired by Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions and Sight Unseen Pictures


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MAKE NOISE: A Creator's Guide to Podcasting and Great Audio Storytelling by Eric Nuzum is the first book on the craft of audio storytelling from a true podcasting pioneer. Nuzum has created and produced podcasts that routinely top the charts, appear in yearly “best of” lists, and win awards. Of the six billion podcast downloads each year, more than one billion of those are for the 130 podcasts Nuzum created, including the TED Radio Hour, Invisibilia, Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel, and The Butterfly Effect.


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WHEN YOU SEE ME is Gardner’s most daring novel yet. Set far from her usual haunts (the streets of Boston and the wilds of New Hampshire), the book’s backdrop is a secluded Georgia mountain community that oozes small-town sinister. A haven for hikers in the summer and not much else, Niche, Georgia has flown under the radar for decades…but when human remains are discovered at the edge of a popular hiking trail, dark deeds that have been buried for years surface.

As the bodies begin to pile up, there are signs that these mysterious murders of the past could be linked to chilling crimes in the present. Soon, three of Gardner’s most beloved characters— Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren, survivor-turned-avenger Flora Dane, and FBI Special Agent Kimberly Quincy—find themselves on the case together, seeking justice and retribution for the living victims and answers for those long gone.

Gardner’s January 2019 novel, Never Tell, just hit stands this summer in paperback and was named Target’s August Book Club pick. It landed on bestseller lists immediately and new readers are flocking to Lisa’s books more than ever before. And though Gardner’s recurring characters have a rich history that weaves throughout her previous novels, WHEN YOU SEE ME stands on its own. Filled with creepy Southern Gothic vibes, secret societies, and twists readers won’t see coming, Gardner’s latest is a must-read for longtime fans and first time readers alike.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lisa Gardner is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty suspense novels, including The Neighbor, which won Thriller of the Year from the International Thriller Writers. An avid hiker, traveler and cribbage player, she lives in the mountains of New Hampshire with her family.


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Matthew Rose’s mind is a mystery. Especially to himself. A bombing in Iraq has left the former soldier with a traumatic brain injury, and now he can’t be sure about anything. The past is a cloudy haze to him, filled with jumbles of impressions and not many solid memories. Unfortunately for him, that could have deadly consequences for his future – how can he protect himself from a killer when he can’t even trust his own mind?

That’s the pulse-pounding premise of THE BLAZE, a mesmerizing new novel from author Chad Dundas, who garnered massive acclaim for his 2016 debut novel, Champion of the World. After leaving the Army, Matthew has trouble acclimating to life back in the States. His head wound means he doesn’t remember major events from his own life, but even worse, major relationships feel unfamiliar to him as well. He knows he should love his mother, for example, but she seems like a stranger to him. The heartbreaking scenario is rendered even worse when Rose receives the news that his father has killed himself. Forced to return to Montana where he grew up to settle his dad’s estate, Matthew is on shaky ground. He knows his parents had divorced long ago and that he and his father had stayed in communication, but they weren’t close, and he doesn’t know why.

Soon, his faulty memory will become a problem that could spell his own doom. It begins with a deadly and suspicious fire. Shortly after returning to Montana, Matthew takes a late-night walk to clear his head and witnesses a massive blaze that burns down a house and leaves a local college student dead. It’s a terrible tragedy, but even more troubling, the event stirs foggy recollections inside his brain, about another fire in this town many years before…and perhaps his own connection to the person who started it.

CHAD DUNDAS has been a sportswriter for ESPN, NBC Sports, the Associated Press, Sporting News, Bleacher Report and other national and regional outlets. His short fiction has appeared in such publications as the Beloit Fiction Journal, Sycamore Review, Sou'Wester and Thuglit, and he is the author of Champion of the World, which was named a Boston Globe Best Book of 2016. A fourth-generation Montanan, he earned his MFA from the University of Montana and lives with his wife and daughter in Missoula. PHOTO CREDIT : Amy Donovan


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Rochelle B. Weinstein is the USA Today bestselling author of emotionally driven women’s fiction, including Somebody’s Daughter, Where We Fall, The Mourning After, and What We Leave Behind. Rochelle spent her early years in sunny South Florida, always with a book in hand, raised by the likes of Sidney Sheldon and Judy Blume. Upon graduating from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, Rochelle moved to Los Angeles, where she handled advertising and promotions for major film studios and record labels at LA Weekly. After returning to Miami, she continued her passion for entertainment as a music-industry executive at the Box Music Network. When she’s not writing, Rochelle loves to hike, read, and find the world’s best nachos. She is currently working on her sixth novel. Please visit her at rochelleweinstein.com.

Behind the Book with Rochelle WeinsteinWriters don’t always remember the impetus behind sitting down to write a book. By the time they’re asked this question they’re typically on their next manuscript and the recollection is distant and faded. If I dig deep inside my memory bank, I believe I initially wrote this book because of my readers. After What We Leave Behind released in 2012, fans and book clubs suggested I craft another love story. And with timely topics under my belt such as glycogen storage disease (human trials have begun), mental illness (we all see how the problem is rampant), and the dangers of digital over-sharing (now summer required reading for high schoolers), it was time to return to my favorite genre: a heartbreaking, emotional read of love, loss, and forgiveness.

I think I’ve always been a hopeless romantic. Love stories between complex characters speak to my soul because of their relatability—who hasn’t fallen in love, fallen apart, and questioned their choices? At times, the fictionalized “love story” falls victim to a host of criticisms. It’s not a mere light and fluffy mindless connection. In many cases, it’s deeply moving with some rare and beautiful lessons. As someone who is fascinated by human behavior, I’ve witnessed internal struggles, how upbringing and early loss affect our choices, and I’ve seen how pain and promises disappoint. Anyone reading my novels will uncover layers of depth and understanding, facets that ultimately influence our trajectory.

Over the years, I have stated in interviews, blogs, and social media that writers write what they know. Perhaps that’s why family members and friends have searched for pieces of me and themselves in my words. But what I think most authors will tell you is that their life experiences cultivate intense feelings and emotions and we infuse them in our stories to give them weight and depth and meaning. Writing this story, and the many before, I have tapped into those emotions so vividly, though they are never one experience or even one emotion. They are a collaboration twisted through fiction, and that’s how a manuscript comes to life: heartfelt and powerful.


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In HUNTER KILLER  Pike Logan tracks highly-trained Russian assassins to Brazil after a vicious explosion kills a friend in Charleston, South Carolina. Pike knows the attack was meant for him. And when he loses contact with the Taskforce who are on a counter-terrorist mission in Brazil, Pike is convinced he and the Taskforce are under assault. Pike, along with his partner Jennifer Cahill, head to Brazil to investigate and within days they are entangled in a byzantine scheme involving a battle for control of offshore oil fields. The Russians are the equal of anything the Taskforce has encountered before, but they make a mistake in attacking Pike’s team, because he will stop at nothing to protect his family.


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What caused Tiger Woods to fall farther than any beloved athlete in recent history, and even more, what led to his improbable return to glory at the 2019 Masters? 

Curt Sampson is one of America’s leading golf writers whose new book, ROARING BACK (Diversion Books, October 2019) retells the phenomenal comeback of one of the most iconic golfers ever.  From the highs and lows of his career, to the inevitable comparisons with other notable golfers like Ben Hogan, Sampson shows why Tiger’s comeback rivals the most dramatic of any sport in history. 

About The Author:CURT SAMPSON is one of America’s leading golf writers and the author of many books, including NYT bestsellers The Masters and Hogan.  He has written for Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest, and Golf World.


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A ski resort owner in Montana is murdered.

Other deaths, once believed to be accidental, receive a fresh look from television reporter JC Snow and police investigators.

There could be a serial killer in the resort community.

Grizzly Mountain is a ski resort full of snow country characters, from ski racers to ski bums to overdressed billionaires. An unfortunate few may be caught in the claws of Grizzly Mountain.

Phil Bayly is a journalist. He's worked in television and radio in Colorado, Wyoming, Pennsylvania and New York. He also spent decades as a mediocre ski racer. He lives in Saratoga County, New York. Visit Phil at www.murderonskis.com


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From beloved CBS Sunday Morning correspondent and humorist Mo Rocca, an entertaining and rigorously researched book that celebrates the dead people who have long fascinated him.

Mo Rocca has always loved obituaries—reading about the remarkable lives of global leaders, Hollywood heavyweights, and innovators who changed the world. But not every notable life has gotten the send-off it deserves. His quest to right that wrong inspired Mobituaries, his #1 hit podcast. Now with Mobituaries, the book, he has gone much further, with all new essays on artists, entertainers, sports stars, political pioneers, founding fathers, and more. Even if you know the names, you’ve never understood why they matter...until now.

Take Herbert Hoover: before he was president, he was the “Great Humanitarian,” the man who saved tens of millions from starvation. But after less than a year in the White House, the stock market crashed, and all the good he had done seemed to be forgotten. Then there’s Marlene Dietrich, well remembered as a screen goddess, less remembered as a great patriot. Alongside American servicemen on the front lines during World War II, she risked her life to help defeat the Nazis of her native Germany. And what about Billy Carter and history’s unruly presidential brothers? Were they ne’er-do-well liabilities…or secret weapons? Plus, Mobits for dead sports teams, dead countries, the dearly departed station wagon, and dragons. Yes, dragons.

Rocca is an expert researcher and storyteller. He draws on these skills here. With his dogged reporting and trademark wit, Rocca brings these men and women back to life like no one else can. Mobituaries is an insightful and unconventional account of the people who made life worth living for the rest of us, one that asks us to think about who gets remembered, and why.

Photo Credit: John Paul Filo CBS Broadcasting Inc.


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Two years after The Guests on South Battery became a New York Times hardcover bestseller, Melanie Trenholm returns. Finally married to true-crime bestselling author Jack Trenholm, they are living in Melanie’s historic home with their 18-month old twins and Jack’s fifteen-year-old daughter. But domestic bliss can’t last for long. A new passel of spirits have taken up residence at Fifty-Five Tradd, and they need Melanie’s help to right old wrongs and solve a mystery.

In THE CHRISTMAS SPIRITS ON TRADD STREET, Melanie should be anticipating the holidays with nothing but joy. But then she discovers that a long-lost Revolutionary War treasure may be somewhere on her property. A gift from the French King—brought to Charleston by the Marquis de Lafayette himself to help finance the Colonial war effort—it’s whispered that many have already killed, and died to possess the treasure. When it resurfaces in present day, someone will once again stop at nothing to possess it . . . even if that means destroying everything Melanie holds dear.

Christmas is the perfect time to fall in love with the residents of Tradd Street, both living and otherwise. Certain to delight long-time fans and easy to jump into for newcomers, THE CHRISTMAS SPIRITS ON TRADD STREET is a can’t-miss holiday release.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels, including the Tradd Street series, Dreams of Falling, The Night the Lights Went Out, Flight Patterns, The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between. She is the coauthor of The Forgotton Room and The Glass Ocean with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband and two children near Atlanta, Georgia.


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ABOUT THE BOOK:

In JUST WATCH ME, Riley aims for an extraordinary target in a heist that will go down in history books: he will try to steal the Crown Jewels of Iran. Lent to the U.S. for diplomatic relations, the jewels are worth billions of dollars. Yet Riley’s draw to the jewels isn’t the potential payoff but rather that it can’t be done. With the best tech guarding the jewels, not to mention two teams of heavily armed mercenaries, a person would need to have a death wish to even attempt it. But Riley likes a challenge. His plans to pull off the impossible start with enlisting a master art forger as an ally, assuming different identities, and reconnaissance. At the same time, Special Agent Frank Delgado is also trying to achieve the unthinkable: catching Riley. Having missed him many times before, Delgado isn’t about to let him get away again. With the aid of his sometime ally, a beautiful woman who is a master art forger, Riley Wolfe goes for the prize that will either make him a legend—or, more likely, leave him dead. A thrilling cat and mouse game, JUST WATCH ME will leave readers white knuckling as they turn the pages.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeff Lindsay is the New York Times bestselling author of the Dexter novels, which debuted in 2004 with Darkly Dreaming Dexter. They are the basis of the hit Showtime and CBS series Dexter.


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An Iowa native, George Lunn came to Schenectady in 1904 to become senior pastor at the First Reformed Church in the city's Stockade Neighborhood. He entered politics in 1911 and was elected mayor of Schenectady as a member of the Socialist Party. He worked with General Electric scientist Charles Steinmetz to create Central Park and improve the city's school system, and also initiated free garbage pickup and a health clinic, all while the city's population was rapidly increasing due to immigration. He won the mayoral election four times, twice after switching to the Democratic Party, and also became a U.S. Congressman and Lieutenant Governor under Al Smith.

Bill Buell is a life-long Schenectady County resident who spent 41 years - the first 21 as a sportswriter and the last 18 as a news reporter - with the Daily Gazette Newspaper. He graduated from Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School, Schenectady County Community College and the University at Albany, earning a degree in history. He has written books on Schenectady County and Albany County, and has won numerous writing awards, including a 2018 New York Press Association Award for a series on the history of the General Electric Company.


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Professional sports is a multi-billion dollar business that pays players extremely well, but it wasn’t always that way. How did pro sports go from a quaint collection of athletes who needed side jobs in the off-season, to the lucrative industry for players it is today?

Jim Quinn is the legendary sports lawyer who spearheaded free agency for every professional sports league, including the MLB, MLS, NFL, and NBA. Quinn’s new book, DON’T BE AFRAID TO WIN: How Free Agency Changed the Business of Pro Sports is a captivating look inside the tense meetings between owners, players, and league unions that explains free agency, and why it matters. With specific examples of how hard owners fought, Quinn shows the gritty steps it took to make deals that satisfied everyone.

JAMES W. QUINN is one of the most accomplished trial, arbitration, and mediation lawyers in U.S. history. Mr. Quinn spent virtually his entire career at Weil, Gotshal, & Manges LLP, a premier international law firm based in NYC. At Weil, he served for more than two decades as both head of the firm’s 350-attorney Litigation Department and as a member of the Firm’s Management Committee. Mr. Quinn practiced in all areas of complex litigation and alternative dispute resolution, with particular emphasis on antitrust, securities, false advertising, sports entertainment, patent, and related complex intellectual property litigation. He also developed extensive experience serving as an arbitrator under, among others, ICC and AAA International rules. He is currently counsel to the national litigation boutique firm Berg and Androphy and a principal in JW Quinn ADR LLC, a mediation practice where he tries to settle, rather than start, disputes. Mr. Quinn received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his L.L.B. from Fordham University School of Law, where he teaches a course about winning at trial.


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THE CITY GAME by bestselling author Matthew Goodmanis the incredible underdog story of the 1949-50 City College Beavers basketball team, their unlikely rise to top and subsequent fall from grace. In this gripping, true-life account, Goodman uncovers the real story behind the greatest American sports scandal since the 1919 “Black Sox.” In 1950 the City College Beavers became the only basketball team in history to win both the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year. One year later the team’s star players were arrested for conspiring with gamblers to shave points. Overnight the players went from heroes to villains – but as Goodman shows, they were actually caught in a much larger web of corruption that stretched across major social institutions from City Hall to the police department, sports arenas, and even the universities themselves. It’s a historical story of duplicity and cynicism that’s all too relevant to big-money college sports today.

Matthew Goodman is the author of three previous books of nonfiction: Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World; The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York; and Jewish Food: The World at Table. A New York Times bestseller, Eighty Days has been translated into eight languages. Goodmans work has appeared in The American Scholar, Harvard Review, Salon, and many other publications. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.


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Mitch Albom is the author of six consecutive number-one New York Times bestsellers and has sold more than thirty-four million copies of his books.   He returns this year to nonfiction for the first time in more than a decade with the release of his new memoir, Finding Chika:A Little Girl, an Earthquake, and the Making of a Family.

Finding Chika is the story of Mitch and his wife becoming the adoptive guardians of a young Haitian orphan, and the incredible bond they formed—and what it means to be a family, regardless of how it is made.


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Internationally acclaimed, #1 New York Times bestselling author Ruta Sepetys is renowned for writing novels that uncover hidden histories, and for giving a voice to the voiceless. THE FOUNTAINS OF SILENCE is set in Madrid, during the summer of 1957, and told in alternating voices, this riveting novel sheds light on the hidden and all-but-forgotten tragedies of Franco-era Spain to deliver a gripping exploration of identity, dignity, and the debilitating repercussions of war.

The Fountains of Silencetells the story of Daniel Matheson, a Dallas high society teen who joins his parents on a summer trip to Madrid as part of his father's oil business expansion. He arrives, hoping to connect with the country of his mother's birth. But spending time in Madrid brings more than just family bonding, as Daniel begins to discover an incredibly dark side of the sunny Spanish city. Photography--and fate--introduce him to Ana, whose family's interweaving obstacles reveal the lingering grasp of the Spanish Civil War--as well as chilling definitions of fortune and fear. Daniel's photographs leave him with uncomfortable questions. While his father conducts business with Franco, Daniel gets to know the people that El Caudillo's oppression is hurting the most and makes it his mission to bring to light the atrocities the world has ignored.

Ruta Sepetys (www.rutasepetys.com) is an internationally acclaimed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of historical fiction. Her debut novel, Between Shades of Gray,was hailed as “superlative” (New York Times Book Review) and “an engrossing and poignant story of the fortitude of the human spirit” (Associated Press). The Washington Post declared, “Few books are beautifully written, fewer still are important; this novel is both.” Her most recent novel Salt to the Sea appeared on multiple Best Book of the Year lists. The Wall Street Journal called it “Superlative…Masterfully crafted.” The New York Times Book Review raved, “Once again, Ruta Sepetys acts as champion of the interstitial people so often ignored—whole populations lost in the cracks of history.”Sepetys is considered a "crossover" novelist as her books are read by both teens and adults worldwide. Her novels are published in over sixty countries and forty languages. Her books have won or been shortlisted for over forty book prizes, and are included on over sixty state award lists. Between Shades of Gray was adapted into the film Ashes in the Snow, and her other novels are currently in development for TV and film. Winner of the Carnegie Medal, Ruta is passionate about the power of history and literature to foster global awareness and connectivity. She has presented to NATO, European Parliament, the United States Capitol, and embassies


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On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day—chosen completely at random—turned out to be Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing.

That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, prejudice, selflessness, coincidence, and startling moments of human connection, along with evocative foreshadowing of momentous events yet to come. Lives were lost. Lives were saved. Lives were altered in overwhelming ways. Many of these events never made it into the news; they were private dramas in the lives of private people. They were utterly compelling.

One Day asks and answers the question of whether there is even such a thing as “ordinary” when we are talking about how we all lurch and stumble our way through the daily, daunting challenge of being human.

Gene Weingarten is a Washington Post journalist. He writes long-form stories as well as Below the Beltway, the weekly syndicated humor column. His previous books include I’m With Stupid: One Man. One Woman. 10,000 Years of Misunderstanding Between the Sexes Cleared Right Up (with Gina Barreca); The Hypochondriac’s Guide to Life. And Death; Old Dogs: Are the Best Dogs;and The Fiddler in the Subway, a collection of his best-known work. Weingarten is the only two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, for examining the phenomenon of parents who accidentally leave their children to bake to death in hot cars, and for an experiment in which he arranged for famed violinist Joshua Bell to busk incognito outside a Metro station in Washington, to see if anyone would notice.

He lives in Washington, D.C.


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Jami is the author of six books: Instant Love, The Kept Man, The Melting Season, New York Times bestseller The Middlesteins, Saint Mazie, and national bestseller All Grown Up, which was published in March 2017 in the US and the UK, and in Italy, Germany, France, Holland, Poland, Russia, China, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Portugal and Hungary in 2018. Her seventh book, All This Could Be Yours, was published on October 22, 2019.

ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS is the drama of Big Little Lies set in the heat of a southern summer. It’s an epic story told through multiple vantage points about a family reuniting at the deathbed of its patriarch. The Tuchmans are a family that overflows with secrets and misdeeds and in looking at them, we also see our society as a whole: the things we overlook and sweep under the rug, the men we celebrate, the money we chase, where we can find forgiveness, and where we can’t.


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OVERTIME: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football offers a powerful look into a legendary program—and the sport itself—that only bestselling author John U. Bacon could deliver.

Based on Bacon’s unprecedented access to the program, OVERTIME follows the University of Michigan’s coaches, players, and staffers through the 2018 season, including head coach Jim Harbaugh, offensive stars Shea Patterson and Karan Higdon, and NFL-bound defensive standouts Rashan Gary, Devin Bush Jr., and Chase Winovich, among others. All striving to live and play “The Michigan Way” while tuning out all of the external noise and pressures inherent when competing at The Big House, the nation’s largest stadium. Bacon met with them every week during a season that saw the Wolverines ride a thrilling ten-game winning streak to push to #4 in the nation, then take an embarrassing and significant beating at the hands of arch-rival Ohio State, led by the legendary and often controversial coach Urban Meyer.


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ALL OUT WAR delivers an authentic thrill-ride that parachutes readers right into the action of an international crisis that could threaten the safety and freedom of America.   The advance praise has been nothing short of phenomenal from Brad Thor to Lee Child, Nelson DeMille and Clive Cussler—Sean Parnell is the writer to watch!

Author Bio -Sean Parnell is the author of the bestselling memoir Outlaw Platoon and the novel Man of War. He is a retired U.S. Army Infantry captain who served in some of the heaviest combat of the Afghan War. He recounts those battles in vivid detail during his leadership presentations for the nation’s most successful teams and corporations. He is also the cofounder of the American Warrior Initiative, a charity that honors and empowers our veterans. Sean lives with his three children near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.


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When Adrienne was fourteen, her mother, Malabar, woke her at midnight with five simple words: Ben Souther just kissed me. Adrienne instantly became her mother’s confidante and helpmate, and Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help orchestrate what would become an epic affair with her husband’s closest friend. There were calamitous consequences for everyone involved. WILD GAMEis a daughter’s tale of living in the thrall of her magnetic, complicated mother – a story of resilience and a reminder that we need not be the parents our parents were to us.


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John Wesley O'Toole is a disbarred Savannah attorney who is trying to get his life back together after his release from prison following a vehicular homicide charge.  No longer able to practice law, he's become an art dealer after inheriting his grandmother's gallery on Liberty Street.  O'Toole is in deep financial trouble and about to lose everything when he is contacted by Abraham Deign, a wealthy businessman.  Deign offers him a hefty sum to find a missing painting, and with it, his estranged granddaughter, Lucy.  When Lucy's body is discovered in a burned out car near where she and O'Toole were due to meet, he is arrested on a charge of kidnapping and murder.  Things go downhill from there.


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The first definitive biography of guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan, with an epilogue by Jimmie Vaughan, and foreword and afterword by Double Trouble’s Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon.

Just a few years after he almost died from a severe addiction to cocaine and alcohol, a clean and sober Stevie Ray Vaughan was riding high. His last album was his most critically lauded and commercially successful. He had fulfilled a lifelong dream by collaborating with his first and greatest musical hero, his brother Jimmie. His tumultuous marriage was over and he was in a new and healthy romantic relationship. Vaughan seemed poised for a new, limitless chapter of his life and career.

Instead, it all came to a shocking and sudden end on August 27, 1990, when he was killed in a helicopter crash following a dynamic performance with Eric Clapton. Just 35 years old, he left behind a powerful musical legacy and an endless stream of What Ifs. In the ensuing 29 years, Vaughan’s legend and acclaim have only grown and he is now an undisputed international musical icon. Despite the cinematic scope of Vaughan’s life and death, there has never been a truly proper accounting of his story. Until now.

ALAN PAUL is the author of the New York Times bestseller One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band, the definitive book on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band. His first book, Big in China, is about his experiences raising an American family, forming a band and becoming an unlikely rock star in Beijing. He is a regular guest on radio shows and a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, Guitar World, and other publications. He lives in New Jersey.

ANDY ALEDORT has been an essential contributor to the international music scene for 35 years, working as a journalist, instructor and performer. He has conducted hundreds of interviews and lessons with the world’s greatest guitarists for Guitar World and other publications, and toured and recorded with original Jimi Hendrix bandmates Mitch Mitchell and Buddy Miles and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble. He was a member of Dickey Betts and Great Southern for 12 years. He has also sold over one million instructional DVDs and teaches guitar privately and via online sites such as Truefire. He lives on Long Island.


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PETER SETH’s When I Got Out:

Larry Ingber fell deeply in love once...and it cost him forty years of his life. Branded “The Ivy League Killer” by the media that followed his sensational story of obsession and its consequences, Larry has at last been freed from prison and tossed into a world he barely understands. Filled with tension, nuance, and revelation, When I Got Out is a remarkable story about what happens when the world you left behind and the world you never knew collide.


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Joe Pike didn't expect to rescue a woman that day. He went to the bank same as anyone goes to the bank, and returned to his Jeep. So when Isabel Roland, the lonely young teller who helped him, steps out of the bank on her way to lunch, Joe is on hand when two men abduct her. Joe chases them down, and the two men are arrested. But instead of putting the drama to bed, the arrests are only the beginning of the trouble for Joe and Izzy. After posting bail, the two abductors are murdered and Izzy disappears. Pike calls on his friend, Elvis Cole, to help learn the truth. What Elvis uncovers is a twisted family story that involves corporate whistleblowing, huge amounts of cash, the Witness Relocation Program, and a long line of lies. But what of all that did Izzy know? Is she a perpetrator or a victim? And how far will Joe go to find out?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Crais is the author of twenty-one previous novels, seventeen of them featuring Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. He has won a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America as well as the Anthony, Barry, Shamus, Macavity, Gumshoe, and Ross Macdonald awards. His novels have been translated into forty-two languages and are global bestsellers. A native of Louisiana, he lives in Los Angeles.


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About THE LAST WIDOW:

THE LAST WIDOWbegins with an abduction. The routine of a family shopping trip is shattered when Michelle Spivey is snatched as she leaves the mall with her young daughter. The police search for her, her

partner pleads for her release, but in the end...they find nothing. It’s as if she disappeared into thin air. A month later, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, medical examiner Sara Linton is about to have lunch with her boyfriend Will Trent, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. But the serenity of the summer’s day is broken by the wail of sirens. Sara and Will are trained to help in an emergency. Their jobs require that they run toward a crisis, not away from it. But on this one terrible day that instinct betrays them both. Within hours the situation has spiraled out of control; Sara is taken prisoner; Will is forced undercover. And the fallout will lead them into the Appalachian Mountains, to the terrible truth about what happened to Michelle, and to a remote compound where a radical group has murder in mind.

Karin Slaughter is one of the world’s most popular and acclaimed storytellers. Published in 120 countries with more than 35 million copies sold across the globe, her nineteen novels include the Grant County and Will Trent books, as well as the Edgar nominated Cop Town and the instant New York Times bestselling novels Pretty Girls, The Good Daughter, and Pieces of Her. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, Slaughter lives in Atlanta. Her standalone novels Pieces of Her, The Good Daughter, and Cop Town are in development for film and television.


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ABOUT CHANCES ARE . . . From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls comes a new revelation: a riveting story about the abiding yet complex power of friendship.

One beautiful September day, three men convene on Martha’s Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the sixties. They couldn’t have been more different then, or even today–Lincoln’s a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin’ age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971: the disappearance of the woman each of them loved–Jacy Calloway. Now, more than forty years later, as this new weekend unfolds, three lives are displayed in their entirety while the distant past confounds the present like a relentless squall of surprise and discovery. Shot through with Russo’s trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are . . . also introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader’s heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga of how friendship’s bonds are every bit as constricting and rewarding as those of family or any other community.

For both longtime fans and lucky newcomers, Chances Are . . . is a stunning demonstration of a highly acclaimed author deepening and expanding his remarkable achievement.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Russois the author of eight novels, most recently Everybody’s Fool and That Old Cape Magic; two collections of stories; and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries; in 2016 he was given the Indie Champion Award by the American Booksellers Association; and in 2017 he received France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine. He lives in Port­land, Maine.

Photo Credit- Elena Seibert


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A New Kind of Monster

A predator who struck at random, Israel Keyes had no M.O. or victim type—which helped him go undetected by law enforcement for over a decade. He would fly into a city, rent a car and cross state lines, abduct his victims, kill them, and dispose of their remains so expertly he left no DNA. Then he’d get back in his car and put thousands of miles between himself and the crime scene.

Callahan calls Keyes “an analog killer in a digital age,” because he would “go dark”: using only cash, turning off his cell phone, and burying weapons, body disposal tools, and money in remote locations—and to which he would return to dig back up, months or years later, whenever the urge to kill struck next. He left a trail of monstrous crimes in his wake, many of which are still unsolved. And then he would return home, resuming life as a quiet, reliable construction worker devoted to his only daughter.

Behind the Scenes of the Alaska PD and the FBI

Callahan takes readers to a singularly remote setting—Anchorage, Alaska—where the disappearance of a young girl named Samantha Koenig eventually led to Keyes’ arrest. But the Alaska PD and the FBI had no idea just who—or what—they had on their hands when they brought him in. And in such a rural and isolated environment, the process of interrogating and investigating Keyes didn’t exactly go by-the-book.

Callahan describes how the FBI deliberately kept Keyes’ existence a secret from the public, and how the federal prosecutor’s methods could have put the case in jeopardy—had it gone to trial, which (spoiler alert) it never did. Because even though Keyes was one of the scariest and most high-profile criminals in modern history, he was somehow able to commit suicide in prison.

The Book the FBI Doesn’t Want You to Read

Callahan was given unprecedented access to the agents who worked the Keyes case, but at a certain point, the DOJ started stonewalling her requests for documents. She spent over five years—and tens of thousands of dollars of her own money—researching and delving into classified files, including a court battle that led to the unsealing of 13 hours of interview footage with Keyes.

Callahan also got her hands on fascinating psychological evaluations of Keyes that illuminated much about his childhood, including an off-the-grid, Educated-type upbringing as the oldest of ten children, an affiliation with a white supremacist cult, and a friendship with two young men who would go on to become among America’s Most Wanted.

She interviewed law enforcement, lawyers, and even Keyes’ mother, a private woman who had never before spoken to a reporter. And though the book lays bare some of the bureaucracy and institutional issues that could have damaged the case, as she puts it, “I think the Bureau will be happy with AMERICAN PREDATOR—one of the things it really highlights is the granular work, obsessive dedication, and big-picture approach that allowed these very talented men and women to capture one of this century’s greatest monsters.”

Case Not Closed

Keyes is believed to have killed at least 11 people, but likely many more. At one point during his interrogation, an investigator said, “We have to assume that every time you traveled, you killed someone.” Keyes didn’t confirm or deny, but the statement was treated like fact in the room. Callahan believes Keyes killed many more people than what’s been determined so far, and hopes this book will help to reopen—and eventually close—cases where he could be the culprit.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maureen Callahan is an award-winning investigative journalist, author, columnist, and commentator. She has covered everything from pop culture to politics. Her writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, New York, Spin, and the New York Post, where she is currently critic-at-large. She lives in New York.


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It's a little-known chapter in history - the era of the Women Airforce Service Pilots - whose courage during World War II turned ordinary women into extraordinary heroes! And now a new book brings to light the lives and stories of these women. "The Flight Girls" by author Noelle Salazar - is inspired by their stunning story and re-imagines the heroines at its center. Fans of " Hidden Figures" and "The Lilac Girls" and will savor this book!

Fortified by the bonds of sisterhood, a resilient young woman charts an unconventional course in pursuit of her dreams and navigates adversity, tragedy, and love along the way in THE FLIGHT GIRLS (

Inspired by the real-life female pilots who aided the military during World War II, this exquisite book by author Noelle Salazar illuminates a little-known historical chapter and re-imagines the heroines at its center.

October 1941. With Europe already at war, Audrey Coltrane has come to Hawaii to instruct Army aviators. Ever since she was just a girl, she has been happiest in the cockpit. One day soon, she plans to buy an airfield near her home in Dallas. No man will distract her from her goals, she vows to the fellow fliers who have become cherished friends, not even the dashing Lieutenant James Hart. Still, their shared experience dodging Japanese gunfire above Pearl Harbor one momentous December morning only deepens their connection.

Sent into a tailspin of grief by all that has been lost in the attack, Audrey rallies to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots program. Alight with purpose once more, she draws strength from her relationships with the other recruits and the importance of their mission. But the horrors of war are never far away. And when James gets shot down over enemy territory, Audrey risks everything to fight for the future she now envisions, one filled with precious dreams old and new.

Extensively researched and vividly told, THE FLIGHT GIRLS provide a lens through which to view the WASP groundbreakers who volunteered to serve their country despite the danger and then vanished into obscurity.

Their courageous example is brought to unforgettable life in these stirring pages by a remarkable protagonist determined to make her mark in a changing world.

About the author: Noelle Salazar was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest where she's been a Navy recruit, a medical assistant, an NFL cheerleader, and always a storyteller. When she's not writing, she can be found dodging raindrops and daydreaming of her next book. Noelle lives in Bothell, Washington, with her husband and two children. THE FLIGHT GIRLS is her first novel. For more information, please visit www.noellesalazar.com and follow @noelle_salazar on Twitter.


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#1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva is “quite simply the best” (Kansas City Star) writer of foreign intrigue and suspense at work today—and his iconic creation Gabriel Allon is “one of fiction’s greatest spies” (Kirkus Reviews). Silva’s twenty-second novel, THE NEW GIRL (published by HarperCollins) finds Allon, the legendary chief of Israeli intelligence, in the most unlikely of alliances, helping the controversial, much-maligned crown prince of Saudi Arabia recover his kidnapped daughter. What Gabriel encounters is a deadly secret war for control of the Middle East—with not only the life of a child but also one of the world’s most powerful, wealthiest thrones hanging in the balance.

About THE NEW GIRL

It begins at an exclusive private school in Geneva, where a beautiful student of mysterious origins disappears one day after being picked up by her security detail. She is the daughter of Khalid bin Mohammed, the much-maligned crown prince of Saudi Arabia. KBM, as he is known to much of the world, turns to an unlikely person to help him get the girl back alive: Gabriel Allon, now the head of Israeli intelligence and no ally to oppressive Islamic states. Despite his excesses and the rumors of his brutality, KBM has pledged to finally break the bond between the Kingdom and radical Islam. For that reason alone, Gabriel considers him a valuable if flawed partner. Together these strange bedfellows will face a deadly secret war not only for the Saudi throne, but for control of the Middle East.

BIO: Daniel Silva is the award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, The Defector, The Rembrandt Affair, Portrait of a Spy, The Fallen Angel, The English Girl, The Heist, The English Spy, The Black Widow, House of Spies, and The Other Woman. Silva’s books have been translated into more than thirty languages and are bestsellers around the world. He has been interviewed on hundreds of radio and television programs, including NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, to discuss his books as well as politics, terrorism, and the Middle East. He resides in Florida with his wife, television journalist Jamie Gangel, and their twins, Lily and Nicholas.

Photo Credit: Marco Grob.


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The historical adult debut novel by # 1 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Kate, The Orphan’s Song is a sweeping love story about family and music–and the secrets each hold–that follows the intertwined fates of two Venetian orphans.

“A tangled knot of betrayal and love, lies and redemption. Marvelous.” –Fiona Davis, author of The Address

A song brought them together.

A secret will tear them apart.

Venice, 1736. When fate brings Violetta and Mino together on the roof of the Hospital of the Incurables, they form a connection that will change their lives forever. Both are orphans at the Incurables, dreaming of escape. But when the resident Maestro notices Violetta’s voice, she is selected for the Incurables’ world famous coro, and must sign an oath never to sing beyond its church doors.

After a declaration of love ends in heartbreak, Mino flees the Incurables in search of his family. Known as the “city of masks,” Venice is full of secrets, and Mino is certain one will lead to his long-lost mother. Without him, the walls close in on Violetta and she begins a dangerous and forbidden nightlife, hoping her voice can secure her freedom. But neither finds what they are looking for, until a haunting memory Violetta has suppressed since childhood leads them to a shocking confrontation.

Vibrant with the glamour and beauty of Venice at its zenith, The Orphan’s Songtakes us on a breathtaking journey of passion, heartbreak, and betrayal before it crescendos to an unforgettable ending, a celebration of the enduring nature and transformative power of love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lauren Kate is the #1 New York Times– and internationally bestselling author of nine novels for young adults, including Fallen, which was made into a major motion picture. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages and have sold more than ten million copies worldwide. Kate lives in Los Angeles with her family. The Orphan’s Song is her adult debut novel.


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From the New York Times baseball columnist, an enchanting, enthralling history of the national pastime as told through the craft of pitching, based on years of archival research and interviews with more than three hundred people from Hall of Famers to the stars of today

The baseball is an amazing plaything. We can grip it and hold it so many different ways, and even the slightest calibration can turn an ordinary pitch into a weapon to thwart the greatest hitters in the world. Each pitch has its own history, evolving through the decades as the masters pass it down to the next generation. From the earliest days of the game, when Candy Cummings dreamed up the curveball while flinging clamshells on a Brooklyn beach, pitchers have never stopped innovating.

In K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Tyler Kepner traces the colorful stories and fascinating folklore behind the ten major pitches. Each chapter highlights a different pitch, from the blazing fastball to the fluttering knuckleball to the slippery spitball. Infusing every page with infectious passion for the game, Kepner brings readers inside the minds of combatants sixty feet, six inches apart.

Filled with priceless insights from many of the best pitchers in baseball history including twenty-two Hall of Famers–from Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nolan Ryan to Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and Clayton Kershaw–K will be the definitive book on pitching and join such works as The Glory of Their Times and Moneyball as a classic of the genre.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TYLER KEPNER started covering baseball as a teenager, interviewing players for a homemade magazine that was featured in The New York Timesin 1989. He attended Vanderbilt University on the Grantland Rice/Fred Russell sportswriting scholarship, then covered the Angels for the Press-Enterprise (Riverside, Calif.) and the Mariners for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He joined The New York Times in 2000, covering the Mets for two seasons, the Yankees for eight, and serving as the national baseball writer since 2010.


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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Jane Leavy, the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Boy and Sandy Koufax, comes the definitive biography of Babe Ruth—the man Roger Angell dubbed "the model for modern celebrity."

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR:

The Boston Globe | Publishers Weekly | Kirkus | Newsweek | The Philadelphia Inquirer | The Progressive

Winner of the 2019 SABR Seymour Medal | Finalist for the PEN/ESPN Literary Sports Writing Award | Longlisted for Spitball Magazine’s Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year | Finalist for the NBCC Award for Biography

“Leavy’s newest masterpiece…. A major work of American history by an author with a flair for mesmerizing story-telling.” Forbes

He lived in the present tense—in the camera’s lens. There was no frame he couldn’t or wouldn’t fill. He swung the heaviest bat, earned the most money, and incurred the biggest fines. Like all the new-fangled gadgets then flooding the marketplace—radios, automatic clothes washers, Brownie cameras, microphones and loudspeakers—Babe Ruth "made impossible events happen." Aided by his crucial partnership with Christy Walsh—business manager, spin doctor, damage control wizard, and surrogate father, all stuffed into one tightly buttoned double-breasted suit—Ruth drafted the blueprint for modern athletic stardom.

His was a life of journeys and itineraries—from uncouth to couth, spartan to spendthrift, abandoned to abandon; from Baltimore to Boston to New York, and back to Boston at the end of his career for a finale with the only team that would have him. There were road trips and hunting trips; grand tours of foreign capitals and post-season promotional tours, not to mention those 714 trips around the bases.

After hitting his 60th home run in September 1927—a total that would not be exceeded until 1961, when Roger Maris did it with the aid of the extended modern season—he embarked on the mother of all barnstorming tours, a three-week victory lap across America, accompanied by Yankee teammate Lou Gehrig. Walsh called the tour a "Symphony of Swat." The Omaha World Heraldcalled it "the biggest show since Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey, and seven other associated circuses offered their entire performance under one tent." In The Big Fella, acclaimed biographer Jane Leavy recreates that 21-day circus and in so doing captures the romp and the pathos that defined Ruth’s life and times.

Drawing from more than 250 interviews, a trove of previously untapped documents, and Ruth family records, Leavy breaks through the mythology that has obscured the legend and delivers the man.


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A comprehensive history of the 2009 squad's rise to the championship

Boasting a mix of homegrown talent and All-Star signings, the 2009 Yankees were composed of the very best. With the previous season's failed playoff bid still as fresh as the paint job on the new Yankee Stadium, a 27th championship flag represented the singular objective of a squad that ultimately carved out a unique spot among the Yankees' pantheon of World Series teams. It was the last title for the "Core Four"—Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte—who would each retire over the course of the next five years. It was the lone title for Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett, and Nick Swisher, each of whom saw memorable peaks and valleys during their time in the Bronx. For CC Sabathia and Brett Gardner, it was their first championship, though the veterans were still in pinstripes as the latest generation of Yankees arrived for what they hope will be the next dynasty. Mission 27 is a thoroughly reported chronicle of an unforgettable season, packed with interviews with the full cast of key players, team executives, broadcasters, and more.

Author Biography

Mark Feinsand is an Executive Reporter for MLB.com. He is the author of The New York Yankees Fans' Bucket List, and he contributed to the Yankees' official 2009 World Series championship commemorative book, Twenty-Seven. Bryan Hoch has covered New York baseball for two decades, working as the Yankees' MLB.com beat reporter since 2007. He is the author of The Baby Bombers: The Inside Story of the Next Yankees Dynasty.Nick Swisher played for the New York Yankees from 2009 to 2012.


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In time for the 50th anniversary of the Mets' miraculous 1969 World Series win, right fielder Ron Swoboda tells the story of that amazing season, the people he played with and against (sometimes at the same time), and what life was like as an Every Man ballplayer.

Ron Swoboda wasn’t the greatest player the Mets ever had, but he made the greatest catch in Met history, saving a game in the 1969 World Series, and his RBI clinched the final game. By Met standards that makes him legend. The Mets even use a steel silhouette of the catch as a backing for the right field entrance sign at Citi Field.

In this smart, funny, insightful memoir, which is as self-deprecating as a lifetime .249 hitter has to be, he tells the story of that magical year nearly game by game, revealing his struggles, his triumphs and what life was like for an every day, Every Man player, even when he was being platooned. He shows what it took to make one of the worst teams in baseball and what it was like to leave one of the best. And when he talks about the guys he played with and against, it’s like you’re sitting next to him on the team bus, drinking Rheingold. Here's the Catch is a book anyone who loves the game will love as much.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RON SWOBODA played right field for the Mets from 1965 to 1970, the Expos in 1971 and the Yankees from 1971 to 1973. Afterwards he was a TV sportscaster in New York City, Milwaukee and New Orleans, where he provided color commentator for telecasts of the Marlins’ AAA club and now lives.


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In ENEMY CONTACT, Jack Ryan, Jr. finds himself at odds with an international criminal conspiracy. An inside leak has allowed the CIA’s deepest secrets to be given away for a larger agenda that threatens to undermine the entire Western intelligence community. Director of National Intelligence Mary Pat Foley wants it stopped but doesn't know who, how or why. Jack, meanwhile, is dispatched to Poland on a different mission. The clues are thin, and the sketchy trail dead ends in a harrowing fight where he barely escapes with his life. And as if that's not bad enough, Jack gets more tragic news: An old friend who's dying from cancer has one final request for Jack. It seems simple enough, but before it's done, Jack will find himself alone, his life hanging by a thread. If he survives, he'll be one step closer to finding the shadowy figure behind the CIA leak and its true purpose, but in the process, he'll challenge the world's most dangerous criminal syndicate with devastating consequences.

With TOM CLANCY ENEMY CONTACT, Mike Maden delivers yet another spellbinding tale of international intrigue and suspense that could be ripped from tomorrow’s headlines, proving himself yet again to be worthy of carrying on not just Clancy’s #1 bestselling series, but also his legacy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Mike Maden grew up working in the canneries, feed mills and slaughterhouses of California’s San Joaquin Valley. A lifelong fascination with history and warfare ultimately lead to a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Davis with a focus on conflict and technology in international relations. Like millions of others, he first became a Tom Clancy fan after reading The Hunt for Red October, and began his published fiction career in the same techno-thriller genre, starting with Drone and the sequels, Blue Warrior, Drone Command and Drone Threat. After spending over a decade in Dallas, Maden now lives in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee.


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An extraordinary journey behind the scenes of Arlington National Cemetery, Senator Tom Cotton’s Sacred Duty offers an intimate and inspiring portrait of “The Old Guard,” the revered U.S. Army unit whose mission is to honor our country’s fallen heroes on the most hallowed ground in America.

Cotton was a platoon leader with the storied 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment—The Old Guard—between combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the height of the Iraq Surge, he carried the flag-draped remains of his fallen comrades off of airplanes at Dover Air Force Base, and he laid them to rest in Arlington’s famed Section 60, “the saddest acre in America.” He also performed hundreds of funerals for veterans of the Greatest Generation, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars.

The Old Guard has embodied the ideals of honor and sacrifice across our nation’s history. America’s oldest active-duty regiment, dating back to 1784, The Old Guard conducts daily military-honor funerals on the 624 rolling acres of Arlington, where generations of American heroes rest. Its soldiers hold themselves to the standard of perfection in sweltering heat, frigid cold, and driving rain. Every funeral is a no-fail, zero-defect mission, whether honoring a legendary general or a humble private.

In researching and writing the book, Cotton returned to Arlington and shadowed the regiment’s soldiers, from daily funerals to the state funeral of President George H. W. Bush to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, reliving the honor—and the challenges—of duty at the nation’s “most sacred shrine.”

Part history of The Old Guard, part memoir of Cotton’s time at Arlington, part intimate profile of the today’s soldiers, Sacred Duty is an unforgettable testament to the timeless power of service and sacrifice to our nation.


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In their New York Times bestseller, Lincoln’s Last Trial, ABC News chief legal affairs anchor Dan Abrams and bestselling author David Fisher unearthed a little-known chapter from the life and career of America’s most revered president, shedding new light on his national ascendency. Now, in THEODORE ROOSEVELT FOR THE DEFENSE: The Courtroom Battle to Save his Legacy (Hanover Square Press; May 21, 2019; $26.99 US/$33.50 CAN), this team returns to resurrect another seminal case in presidential history: a 1915 libel case brought against Teddy Roosevelt that rocked the nation and American politics.

“There have been at least twenty other twentieth century trials dubbed ‘the trial of the century,’ all captivating based on the nature of the crimes or the identity of the defendants or victims,” write Abrams and Fisher. “But only one of them involved a former president of the United States testifying in his own defense for over a week, and with testimony that would expose the underbelly of seedy political backdoor deal making and even profiteering. Barnes v. Roosevelt also didn’t involve just any former president taking the witness stand. Teddy Roosevelt was one of the most charismatic and entertaining presidents that the nation had, and has, ever seen. He didn’t disappoint, offering animated and at times blistering testimony for an audience that extended well beyond the courtroom.”

The libel case was brought against Roosevelt by William Barnes, the former head of the Republican Party in New York State. While endorsing a nonpartisan gubernatorial candidate, T.R.—himself a Republican before helping launch the Progressive or Bull Moose party—had railed against two-party boss rule as a rotten system that created “an invisible government … responsible for the maladministration and corruption in the public office.” Barnes, the owner and publisher of the Albany Evening Journal, was a powerful party boss with dreams of running for governor himself. In an attempt to save his reputation from these ‘false and malicious attacks ‘Barnes sued Roosevelt for libel, demanding the princely sum of $50,000.

The civil trial, held in Syracuse, became a media circus. Drawing on a trove of primary source material, including the complete typed transcripts from every moment of the case, as well as rich and colorful contemporary reportage from the many newspaper journalists covering the proceedings, Abrams and Fisher create a novelistic narrative that captures the high-stakes tension, occasional humor, and precedent-setting testimony. The trial, which played out as America was on the brink of world war, would take its toll on both Roosevelt and Barnes.

Yet, it exposed political misdeeds and set legal precedents, while shoring up T.R.’s reputation as an enemy of corruptions and one of the most progressive leaders our country has ever seen.

“Dan Abrams and David Fisher have penned a thrilling account of a nationally important trial that had profound consequences for both parties, one of whom happened to be Teddy Roosevelt,” says Gregg Tripoli, Executive Director, Onondaga Historical Association. “Abrams and Fisher have sifted through the archives to give us a courtroom seat to witness T.R. at his ‘bully’ best in this high stakes, high drama, high profile, yet so far relatively unknown, trial from our nation’s history.”

About the author: DAN ABRAMS is the chief legal affairs correspondent for ABC News as well as the host of top-rated Live PD on A&E Network and The Dan Abrams Show: Where Politics Meets the Law on SiriusXM. A graduate of Columbia University Law School, he is CEO and founder of Abrams Media, which includes the Law & Crime network. He lives in New York.

Photo Credit: ABC Photography Department


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The Conservative Sensibility takes readers back to the Founders' vision, articulated first in the Declaration of Independence and carried out in the Constitution, which gave the new republic a framework for government unique in world history. Their beliefs in natural rights, limited government, religious freedom, and in human virtue and dignity ushered in two centuries of American prosperity. But in the intellectual battle between the vision of Founding Fathers like James Madison, who advanced the notion of natural rights that pre-exist government, and the progressivism advanced by Woodrow Wilson, the Founders have been losing. It's time to reverse America's political fortunes.

Expansive, intellectually thrilling, and written with the erudite wit that has made Will beloved by millions of readers, The Conservative Sensibility is an extraordinary new book, one that will join the conservative canon alongside books like The Road to Serfdom, Capitalism and Freedom, and God and Man at Yale. And though Will’s book does not once mention the name of the current President of the United States — quite intentionally — it arrives as a clarion call for substantive thinking, at a time when Americans are hungry for strong leadership, and a renewed debate for the soul of our country.

George F. Will writes a twice-weekly syndicated column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs for the Washington Post. He began his column with the Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977. He is also a regular contributor to MSNBC and NBC News. His fourteen previous books include One Man's America, Men at Work, and Statecraft as Soulcraft. Will grew up in Champaign, Ill., attended Trinity College and Oxford University and received a PhD from Princeton.

Photo Credit: Victoria Will


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John Urschel is a respected mathematician pursuing his PhD at MIT. He is also a former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. He may seem like a walking contradiction, but Urschel’s experiences on the field and in the classroom have brought him closer to understanding how emotion and reason, the body and the mind, are always working together. In MIND AND MATTER: A Life in Math and Football, co-written by Louisa Thomas, Urschel’s partner and an accomplished author and journalist, he invites readers into his unique life, where math and athletics both provide a path to make sense of the world around him.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:John Urschel is a former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens and a PhD candidate at MIT. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mathematics from Penn State, and in 2013, he won the Sullivan Award, given to “the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States,” and the Campbell Trophy, awarded to the country's top scholar-athlete in college football.  He co-wrote this book, with his partner, Louisa Thomas.  John and Louisa live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with their daughter. 


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In his 2002 novel Wish You Were Here Stewart O’Nan introduced readers to the Maxwells, as Emily Maxwell gathered together her extended family after the death of her husband Henry. O’Nan’s 2011 novel Emily, Alone, an “utterly captivating portrait of widowhood and old age” (NPR), followed Emily years later as she discovers her own hidden strength and independence. In his new novel HENRY, HIMSELF (Viking; Hardcover: On Sale: April 9, 2019), O’Nan returns once again to the Maxwell family, focusing on Emily’s husband. Told through poignant vignettes and written in O’Nan’s trademark beautifully sparse prose, HENRY, HIMSELF follows Henry Maxwell—an honorable, hardworking family man from the Greatest Generation—throughout his life as a soldier, son, lover, husband, breadwinner, and churchgoer. The result is a warmhearted portrait of an American original that subtly, but unflinchingly, reckons with the responsibilities attached to being a privileged white male in the mid-to-late 20th century.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stewart O'Nan is the author of sixteen previous novels, including City of Secrets; West of Sunset; The Odds; Emily, Alone; Songs for the Missing; Wish You Were Here; A Prayer for the Dying; and Snow Angels. His novel Last Night at the Lobster was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He was born, raised, and lives in Pittsburgh.


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An inspiring memoir from the frontlines of history by the award-winning 60 Minutes correspondent.

Don’t ask the meaning of life. Life is asking, what’s the meaning of you?

With this provocative question, Truth Worth Telling introduces us to unforgettable people who discovered the meaning of their lives in the historic events of our times.

A 60 Minutes correspondent and former anchor of the CBS Evening News, Scott Pelley writes as a witness to events that changed our world. In moving, detailed prose, he stands with firefighters at the collapsing World Trade Center on 9/11, advances with American troops in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reveals private moments with presidents (and would-be presidents) he’s known for decades. Pelley also offers a resounding defense of free speech and a free press as the rights that guarantee all others.

Above all, Truth Worth Telling offers a collection of inspiring tales that reminds us of the importance of values in uncertain times. For readers who believe that values matter and that truth is worth telling, Pelley writes, “I have written this book for you.” 

photo credit: Jane Pelley


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In the years following the Civil War, a new battle began. Newly freed African American men had gained their voting rights and would soon have a chance to transform Southern politics. Former Confederates and other white supremacists mobilized to stop them. Thus, the KKK was born.

After the first political assassination carried out by the Klan, Washington power brokers looked for help in breaking the growing movement. They found it in Hiram C. Whitley. He became head of the Secret Service, which had previously focused on catching counterfeiters and was at the time the government’s only intelligence organization. Whitley and his agents led the covert war against the nascent KKK and were the first to use undercover work in mass crime—what we now call terrorism—investigations.

Like many spymasters before and since, Whitley also had a dark side. His penchant for skulduggery and dirty tricks ultimately led to his involvement in a conspiracy that would bring an end to his career and transform the Secret Service.

Populated by intriguing historical characters—from President Grant to brave Southerners, both black and white, who stood up to the Klan—and told in a brisk narrative style, Freedom’s Detective reveals the story of this complex hero and his central role in a long-lost chapter of American history.

Photo Credit: Marvin Joseph, The Washington Post


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A perfect family is shattered in RUN AWAY, the new thriller from the master of domestic suspense, Harlan Coben.

You’ve lost your daughter.

She’s addicted to drugs and to an abusive boyfriend. And she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to be found.

Then, by chance, you see her playing guitar in Central Park. But she’s not the girl you remember. This woman is living on the edge, frightened, and clearly in trouble.

You don’t stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home.

She runs.

And you do the only thing a parent can do: you follow her into a dark and dangerous world you never knew existed. Before you know it, both your family and your life are on the line. And in order to protect your daughter from the evils of that world, you must face them head on.


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Amos Decker and his FBI partner Alex Jamison are visiting his hometown of Burlington, Ohio, when he's approached by an unfamiliar man as he pays his respects at the graves of his wife and daughter. But Decker instantly recognizes the man’s name: Meryl Hawkins. The first person Decker ever arrested for murder. Though a dozen years in prison have left Hawkins unrecognizably aged and terminally ill, one thing hasn’t changed: He maintains he never committed the murders. Could it be possible that Decker made a mistake all those years ago, sending an innocent man to prison? As he starts digging into the old case, Decker finds a startling connection to a new crime that he may be able to prevent, if only he can put the pieces together quickly enough.

DAVID BALDACCI is a global #1 bestselling author, and one of the world’s favorite storytellers. His books are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with over 130 million worldwide sales. His works have been adapted for both feature film and television. David Baldacci is also the co founder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, for more please visit DavidBaldacci.com and WishYouWellFoundation.org.


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The heart-wrenching but ultimately redemptive story of two World War II soldiers—a Japanese surgeon and an American sergeant—during a brutal Alaskan battle in which the sergeant discovers the medic's revelatory and fascinating diary that changed our war-torn society’s perceptions of Japan.

May 1943. The Battle of Attu—called “The Forgotten Battle” by World War II veterans—was raging on the Aleutian island with an Arctic cold, impenetrable fog, and rocketing winds that combined to create some of the worst weather on Earth. Both American and Japanese forces were tirelessly fighting in a yearlong campaign, and both sides would suffer thousands of casualties. Included in this number was a Japanese medic whose war diary would lead a Silver Star-winning American soldier to find solace for his own tortured soul.

The doctor’s name was Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi, a Hiroshima native who had graduated from college and medical school in California. He loved America, but was called to enlist in the Imperial Army of his native Japan. Heartsick, wary of war, yet devoted to Japan, Tatsuguchi performed his duties and kept a diary of events as they unfolded—never knowing that it would be found by an American soldier named Dick Laird.

Laird, a hardy, resilient underground coal miner, enlisted in the US Army to escape the crushing poverty of his native Appalachia. In a devastating mountainside attack in Alaska, Laird was forced to make a fateful decision, one that saved him and his comrades, but haunted him for years.

Tatsuguchi’s diary was later translated and distributed among US soldiers. It showed the common humanity on both sides of the battle. But it also ignited fierce controversy that is still debated today. After forty years, Laird was determined to return it to the family and find peace with Tatsuguchi’s daughter, Laura Tatsuguchi Davis.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mark Obmascik brings his journalistic acumen, sensitivity, and exemplary narrative skills to tell an extraordinarily moving story of two heroes, the war that pitted them against each other, and the quest to put their past to rest.

Mark Obmascik is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author of The Big Year, which was made into a movie, and Halfway to Heaven. He won the 2009 National Outdoor Book Award for outdoor literature, the 2003 National Press Club Award for environmental journalism, and was the lead writer for the Denver Post team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Denver with his wife and their three sons.


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Milicent Patrick should be a recognizable name and a role model for several generations of young girls with filmmaking dreams. As the only woman ever to design a classic movie monster, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and one of the first female animators at Disney, she blazed a trail that up-and-comers should have been able to follow. But instead, her story was lost. She was denied credit for her work. And for over sixty years, her legacy was buried.

When author Mallory O’Meara first watched The Creature from the Black Lagoon as a teen, her monster-loving heart fell hard. As she began to investigate the film, she made a game- changing discovery: the identity of the Creature’s creator. Milicent instantly became her idol and Mallory needed to find out more about this visionary. But her inquiries were frustratingly inconclusive.

Why, Mallory wondered, isn’t Milicent Patrick celebrated for her transcendent achievements? How is it that women especially are in the dark about her significance? What happened to her? And why has she been erased so completely from cinema history?

Eventually the writer and filmmaker realized that if she wanted answers to these questions, then she needed to unearth them herself. A standout debut that doubles as a call to action, THE LADY FROM THE BLACK LAGOON: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick chronicles Mallory’s journey to find the enigmatic Milicent Patrick and her own, similar trials in the male-centric world of film and horror.

Extensively researched and vividly rendered, this true-life detective story uncovers a fascinating woman blessed with talent, looks, charisma and resilience whose pursuit of an unconventional path yielded movie magic. Piecing together the evidence, Mallory tracks Milicent from her early years spent on the periphery of Hearst Castle and her training at a prestigious art institute to her flourishing career, which was snuffed out by a jealous male colleague at Universal Studios, and her reinvention in the wake of that devastating blow. Along the way, Mallory explores Milicent’s thorny family dynamics, examines her personal and professional relationships, traces her artistic evolution, delves into the gender bias she contended with on the job and so much more.

A strikingly original blend of history, biography, and memoir, THE LADY FROM THE BLACK LAGOON unfolds an eye-opening read from a unique perspective. Reporting from the inside, Mallory gets candid about her experiences in Hollywood, which illustrate the importance of Milicent Patrick as a pioneer and the resounding impact of her work to this day, including how her creations have inspired countless films and spinoffs, most notably The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro’s 2017 triumph.

At once a passion project and an incisive take on movie industry sexism then and now, THE LADY FROM THE BLACK LAGOON offers an essential appreciation of an influential innovator as it foregrounds a behind-the-scenes cinematic culture that would seem all too familiar to Milicent Patrick.

Mallory O’Meara is an author, screenwriter and genre film producer. Every week, she co-hosts the literary podcast Reading Glasses. Whether it's for the screen or the page, Mallory seeks creative projects imbued with the weird; horror and monsters are her passion. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner and their collection of books and cats. THE LADY FROM THE BLACK LAGOON is her first book. For more about Mallory, please visit, www.malloryomeara.com,

Photo Credit: Allan Amato


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The 1962 New York Mets set a record for futility in baseball, losing 120 games, a record that stands to this day. Seven years later, after languishing in the National League cellar year after year, the Mets won the World Series. The “Lovable Losers” suddenly became the “Miracle Mets” in perhaps the greatest worst-to-first transformation in sports history.

Art Shamsky played right field for the 1969 Mets. In AFTER THE MIRACLE: The Lasting Brotherhood of the ’69 Mets (Simon & Schuster, March 19, 2019) he draws on conversations with his former teammates as well as his own recollections to explain how the Mets turned it all around in one year. In 2017, Shamsky organized a trip with former teammates Bud Harrelson, Jerry Koosman, and Ron Swoboda to visit ailing star pitcher Tom Seaver in California, where the men reminisced about how the Mets did it and what has happened to them and their teammates since.

Their good-natured banter lets readers eavesdrop on how the players themselves remember the highlight of their careers. For anyone who remembers this extraordinary event – and for those who have only heard about it – AFTER THE MIRACLE is the inside story, a fan’s dream come true.


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In the vein of Disobedience by Naomi Alderman—but sexy, unique, and Irish—comes The Parting Glass by Gina Marie Guadagnino , an evocative historical fiction debut about a 19th century love triangle between two Irish-immigrant siblings and a young heiress. Booklist recommends it to fan of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. By day, Mary Ballard is lady’s maid to Charlotte Walden, and Mary loves her with an obsessive passion that goes beyond a servant’s devotion. But on her nights off, Mary sheds her persona as prim lady’s maid to reveal her true self: Irish exile Maire O’Farren.

Meanwhile, Charlotte is having an affair with a stable groom, unaware that he is actually Mary’s brother. When the truth of both women’s double lives begins to unravel, Mary is forced to choose between loyalty to her brother and loyalty to Charlotte, and between society’s respect and true freedom. The Parting Glass captures the delicate exuberance of 19th century high society, while examining sexuality, race, and social class in ways that feel startlingly familiar and timely.

Gina Marie Guadagnino holds a BA in English from New York University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School. She is currently a graduate student of Irish Studies at NYU. Her work has appeared in the Morris-Jumel Mansion Anthology of Fantasy and Paranormal Fiction, Mixed Up: Cocktail Recipes (and Flash Fiction) for the Discerning Drinker (and Reader). She lives in New York City with her family.

Photo Credit: L.M. Pane


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This book is not an antidote for the left or right. It’s an accelerant to move the middle off their collective asses to do something positive for America. These essays on America reflect a blunt assessment of where we find ourselves and a call for open minds to think about how to fix things in the US of A. The author explores the notion of the corporate state of Gold, scrutinizes the meaning of God in our society, questions our unhealthy need for Guns and lays out the damage that the Goofballs in power have wrought in this great nation.

Biography Dwight C. Douglas was born in Pittsburgh, PA and attended Point Park University where he studied Journalism and Communication.

He worked on the PBS TV show Mister Rogers Neighborhood as a film-telecine technician and worked at the American Broadcasting Companies as they were developing their FM properties.

Douglas moved to Atlanta to join the largest radio consulting firm in the world, Burkhart-Abrams & Associates, where he later became president and worked with media companies around the world. During that 25-year period, he was instrumental in recruiting and coaching high-profile radio morning shows, including Howard Stern.

He moved to New York in 2000 to be the vice president of marketing for a worldwide software company. In that same time, he produced a comedy web site. Throughout his career, he has written numerous screenplays, magazine articles and is the author of several books.

In 2017, Dwight Douglas retired from his marketing job so he could write full-time. He splits his time between the Adirondacks in upstate New York and Florida’s Gold Coast; depending on the air temperature.


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The Border is the highly anticipated conclusion to the epic Cartel trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Force.

What do you do when there are no borders? When the lines you thought existed simply vanish? How do you plant your feet to make a stand when you no longer know what side you’re on? 

DON WINSLOW is the author of twenty acclaimed, award-winning international bestsellers – including the New York Times bestseller and sensation The Force, the #1 international bestseller The Cartel, The Power of the Dog, Savages, and The Winter of Frankie Machine. Savages was made into a major film by three-time Oscar winning writer-director Oliver Stone. The Cartel is scheduled to begin production in 2019. A former investigator, anti-terrorist trainer, and trial consultant, Winslow lives in California and Rhode Island. 

Photo Credit: Robert  Gallagher


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“Iles sits alongside the icons at the top of today's crime-fiction mountain. He has made Mississippi his own in the same way that James Lee Burke has claimed Cajun country and Michael Connelly has remapped contemporary Los Angeles.” (Starred review, Booklist, CEMETERY ROAD) And with his newest novel, #1 bestselling author Greg Iles illuminates the intricate and complicated relationships that define not just one small town—but that define human nature. CEMETERY ROAD (William Morrow) is an electrifying tale of friendship, betrayal, and shattering secrets that threaten to destroy a Mississippi town. “Iles once again delivers a sweeping tale of family dysfunction, sexually charged secrets and the power of wealth, with an overlay of violence and Southern sensibility.” (Starred review, Publishers Weekly, CEMETERY ROAD) When Marshall McEwan left home at eighteen, he vowed never to return. As a successful D.C. journalist, the political chaos in the nation’s capital has advanced his career, but his father is dying, and his mother is struggling. Marshall returns home to find the town is experiencing an economic rebirth—but everyone knows there’s more to the story behind the new Chinese paper mill landing in Bienville and the ruling families of the town, a group known as the Poker Club, will do anything to keep their secrets buried. Chaos ensues when a beloved local archeologist is murdered at the site where the new mill is to be built. But it’s a shocking second homicide that threatens not only to ruin Bienville’s ‘deal of the century,’ but reveal a secret so devastating that the lives of those who have kept the truth hidden will never be the same. And by the time Marshall digs up the long-buried truth, he would give almost anything not to have to face it. With a paralyzing twist that will leave you speechless, Iles has created a completely original and unforgettable tale of greed and desire, jealousy and murder, forgiveness and damnation—and proves, once again, he is a modern master of suspense.


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Fiona Barton’s debut novel THE WIDOW was an instant international sensation when it published in 2016. Upon release it drew rave reviews, spent seven weeks on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list. Barton quickly followed up with 2017’s THE CHILD, which was selected by librarians nationwide as a Library Reads selection and hit the USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestsellers lists. Barton returns with her highly anticipated third novel THE SUSPECT, again featuring fan-favorite intrepid reporter Kate Waters.

After two girls go missing in Thailand during their gap year, Kate receives a call from her police contact Bob Sparkes, who wants the media to help sound the alarm. Kate can’t help but think of her son Jake, who ran off to Thailand after a rough patch in school and has barely been heard from since. When the story of the missing girls turns to tragedy, Kate flies to Thailand to investigate the potentially grisly crime. But upon her arrival, her professional and personal worlds collide in a shocking manner. While Barton’s previous books have posed moral dilemmas about how far Kate would go to get the story, now, Kate must face the question: what happens when the reporter becomes the reported?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fiona Barton is the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow and The Child. She has trained and worked with journalists all over the world. Previously, she was a senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at the Mail on Sunday, where she won Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards. Born in Cambridge, England, she currently lives in southwest France and England.

Photo Credit: Jenny Lewis


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In this historically accurate and poignant account, set in 1944 against the backdrop of World War II, a young woman is forced to alter the path to the future she had envisioned for herself in Jane Healey’s highly-anticipated second novel, The Beantown Girls.

Fiona Denning had it all planned out: work at Boston City Hall until her fiancé returned from the war, then settle down in the suburbs. But when her husband-to-be is declared missing after being shot down over Germany, Fiona’s life is upended, forcing her to rethink everything she once believed about her future.

Determined to learn what happened to her betrothed, Fiona decides to go to Europe. She volunteers to be a Red Cross Clubmobile Girl, a prestigious assignment where women with education, personality and talent bring soldiers in the field symbols of warmth from home. Fiona recruits two of her best Boston girls to go along: Viviana, who is just fine leaving her secretarial job, and Dottie, a shy music teacher, whose natural talents are sure to bring hope and harmony to the young men fighting on the front lines.

Though each woman possesses exceptional inner strength and outer charm, the trio is wholly unprepared for the daunting challenges posed by war and at times they must summon a kind of courage they never knew they had. Amid the adversity and constant danger come new friendships, romances, and dreams that the friends never imagined would come true. The reader is sure to identify with at least one of the women, as each becomes aware of who she is and the real reason she made the journey to the front lines of the war.

About the Author:

Jane Healey left a career in high tech to become a freelance writer. Her passion for historical fiction became her new career when her debut novel, The Saturday Evening Girls Club, was published in 2017. Based on the true story of a group of Jewish and Italian immigrant women in Boston’s North End at the turn of the twentieth century, the Amazon bestseller was hailed by Redbook as “a breathtaking ode to female empowerment and the American dream.”With the release of The Beantown Girls, she continues to fulfill her dream of writing about lesser-known stories of women in American history.She shares a home north of Boston with her husband, two daughters, and two cats, and when she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, running, cooking, and going to the beach. For more information about the author, visit janehealey.com


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ABOUT THE BOOK:Detective Dave Robicheaux’s world isn’t filled with too many happy stories, but Desmond Cormier’s rags-to-riches tale is certainly one of them. Robicheaux first met Cormier on the streets of New Orleans, when the young, undersized boy had foolish dreams of becoming a Hollywood director.

Twenty-five years later, when Robicheaux knocks on Cormier’s door, it isn’t to congratulate him on his Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Robicheaux has discovered the body of a young woman who’s been crucified, wearing only a small chain on her ankle. She disappeared near Cormier’s Cyrpemort Point estate, and Robicheaux, along with young deputy, Sean McClain, are looking for answers. Neither Cormier nor his enigmatic actor friend Antoine Butterworth are saying much, but Robicheaux knows better.

As always, Clete Purcel and Davie’s daughter, Alafair, have Robicheaux’s back. Clete witnesses the escape of Texas inmate, Hugo Tillinger, who may hold the key to Robicheaux’s case. As they wade further into the investigation, they end up in the crosshairs of the mob, the deranged Chester Wimple, and the dark ghosts Robicheaux has been running from for years. Ultimately, it’s up to Robicheaux to stop them all, but he’ll have to summon a light he’s never seen or felt to save himself, and those he loves.

ABOUT JAMES LEE BURKE:James Lee Burke is a New York Times bestselling author, two-time winner of the Edgar Award, and the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts in Fiction. A legend of the mystery genre, he has authored thirty-six novels and two short story collections. He lives in Missoula, Montana.

Photo Credit: James McDavid


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About The Point of It All

Created and compiled by Charles Krauthammer before his death, The Point of It All is a powerful collection of the influential columnist’s most important works. Spanning the personal, the political and the philosophical, it includes never-before-published speeches and a major new essay about the effect of today’s populist movements on the future of global democracy. Edited and with an introduction by the columnist’s son, Daniel Krauthammer, it is the most intimate and profound book yet by the legendary writer and thinker.

In his decades of work as America’s preeminent political commentator, Charles Krauthammer elevated the opinion column to a form of art. Whether writing about statecraft and foreign policy or reflecting on more esoteric topics such as baseball, spaceflight and medical ethics, Krauthammer was beloved not only for his penetrating wit and insight but also for his ability to identify the hidden moral truths that animate our politics and culture.

This new collection, which Krauthammer composed before his death in June 2018, features the columns, speeches and unpublished writings that showcase the best of his original thought and his last, enduring words on the state of American politics, the nature of liberal democracy and the course of world history.

The book also includes a deeply personal section offering insight into Krauthammer’s beliefs about what mattered most to him–friendship, family and the principles he lived by–all anchored by Daniel Krauthammer’s poignant eulogy for his father.

For longtime readers and newcomers alike, The Point of It All is a timely demonstration of what it means to cut through the noise of petty politics with clarity, integrity and intellectual fortitude. It is a reminder of what made Charles Krauthammer the most celebrated American columnist and political thinker of his generation, a revealing look at the man behind the words and a lasting testament to his belief that anyone with an open and honest mind can grapple deeply with the most urgent questions in politics and in life.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, was a syndicated columnist, political commentator, and physician. His column was syndicated to over 400 newspapers worldwide. He was a nightly panelist on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. And along with his wife, Robyn, he cofounded Pro Musica Hebraica


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Juliana Brody is a rising star in the judicial world. A judge in the Superior Court of Massachusetts, she is rumored to be in consideration for the federal court, and maybe even someday the highest court in the land. At a conference in Chicago, she meets an attractive yet vulnerable man, and in a moment of weakness has an unforgettable night with him. They part with an explicit understanding that this must never happen again – Juliana is married with a family. But back home in Boston, it becomes clear that this was no random encounter. The man from Chicago proves to have an integral role in a case she's presiding over--a sex-discrimination case that's received national attention. To her horror, Juliana discovers that she's been entrapped: her night of infidelity has been captured on video. Strings are being pulled in high places, a terrifying unfolding conspiracy that will turn her life upside down. Her career, her family, and then her life are on the line.

JOSEPH FINDER is the New York Times bestselling author of ten previous novels, including Vanished and Buried Secrets. Finder’s international bestseller Killer Instinct won the International Thriller Writer’s Thriller Award for Best Novel of 2006. Other bestselling titles include Paranoia and High Crimes, which both became major motion pictures. He lives in Boston.


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D.C. homicide detective Frank Lotello returns to find a mysterious vigilante serial killer who is bent on putting an end to political corruption. “Have you ever killed anyone? I have. I’ll do it again. If I need to.” The serial a killer is tried in Judge Cyrus Brooks’ courtroom. Discovering an illicit White House connection suggesting that things may not be as they appear, Lotello quietly approaches Brooks. Putting both of their careers in jeopardy, Lotello and Brooks secretly form an alliance to uncover the truth—before it’s too late. Barak’s novels are explosive, entertaining and intellectually provocative, no less than what you would expect from this experienced courtroom lawyer and former Olympic athlete, best known for writing at “the intersection of contemporary reality and fiction.” The Puppet Master is certain to appeal to all political and legal aficionados who are drawn to political thrillers, legal thrillers, suspense, mystery, crime, courtroom drama, sociopaths, psychopaths, serial killers, murder, and homicide.

RONALD S. BARAK is a novelist, Olympic athlete and experienced courtroom lawyer, best known for his Brooks/Lotello political/legal thriller series blurring reality and fiction. Barak’s novels entertain with matters timely and relevant to the current U.S. political and legal environment. After a distinguished legal career, Barak started writing novels in response to a “dare” from a friend. He is diabetic and in The Amendment Killer he made the 11-year-old kidnap victim diabetic. He and his wife, Barbie, are donating 50% of the profits from that book to diabetes research and education


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The #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Heart of Everything That Is return with one of the most inspiring—and underappreciated—chapters in American history: the story of the Continental Army’s six-month transformation in Valley Forge.

December 1777. It is 18 months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and some 12,000 members of America’s beleaguered Continental Army stagger into a small Pennsylvania encampment 23 miles northwest of British-occupied Philadelphia. The starving and half-naked force is reeling from a string of demoralizing defeats at the hands of King George III’s army, and are barely equipped to survive the coming winter. Their commander in chief, the focused and forceful George Washington, is at the lowest ebb of his military career. The Continental Congress is in exile and the American Revolution appears to be lost.

Yet a spark remains. Determined to keep the rebel cause alive through sheer force of will, Washington transforms the farmland plateau hard by the Schuylkill River into a virtual cabin city. Together with a dedicated coterie of advisers both foreign and domestic—Marquis de Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, the impossibly young Alexander Hamilton, and John Laurens—he sets out to breathe new life into his military force. Against all odds, as the frigid and miserable months pass, they manage to turn a bobtail army of citizen soldiers into a professional fighting force that will change the world forever.

Valley Forge is the story of how that metamorphosis occurred. Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, the team behind such bestsellers as The Heart of Everything That Is, The Last Stand of Fox Company, and Halsey’s Typhoon, show us how this miracle was accomplished despite thousands of American soldiers succumbing to disease, starvation, and the elements. Here is Steuben, throwing himself into the dedicated drilling sessions he imported from Prussian battlefields. Here is Hamilton, proffering the shrewd advice that wards off his beloved commander in chief’s scheming political rivals. Here is Laurens, determined to integrate the Continental Army with freed black men and slaves. Here is Lafayette, thirsting for battlefield accolades while tenaciously lobbying his own king for crucial French aid.

At the center of it all is George Washington, in the prime of his life yet confronting crushing failure as he fends off political conspiracies every bit as pernicious as his incessant military challenges. The Virginia planter-turned-general is viewed by many as unqualified to lead the Continental Army after the humiliating loss of Philadelphia, and his detractors in and out of Congress plot to replace him. The Valley Forge winter is his—and the revolution’s—last chance at redemption. And, indeed, after six months in the camp, Washington fulfills his destiny, leading the Continental Army to a stunning victory in the Battle of Monmouth Court House. The momentum is never again with the Redcoats.

Valley Forge is the riveting true story of a nascent United States toppling an empire. Using new and rarely seen contemporaneous documents—and drawing on a cast of iconic characters and remarkable moments that capture the innovation and energy that led to the birth of our nation—Drury and Clavin provide the definitive account of this seminal and previously undervalued moment in the battle for American independence.

Tom Clavin is the author or coauthor of sixteen books. For fifteen years he wrote for The New York Times and has contributed to such magazines as Golf, Men's Journal, Parade, Reader’s Digest, and Smithsonian. He is currently the investigative features correspondent for Manhattan Magazine. He lives in Sag Harbor, New York. Photo Credit: Anne Drager


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What if the nightmares are actually memories?

It’s been a year since Poppy’s husband, Jack, was brutally murdered during his morning run through Manhattan’s Riverside Park. In the immediate aftermath, Poppy spiraled into an oblivion of grief, disappearing for several days only to turn up ragged and confused wearing a tight red dress she didn’t recognize. What happened to Poppy during those lost days? And more importantly, what happened to Jack?

The case was never solved, and Poppy has finally begun to move on. But those lost days have never stopped haunting her. Poppy starts having nightmares and blackouts—there are periods of time she can’t remember, and she’s unable to tell the difference between what is real and what she’s imagining. When she begins to sense that someone is following her, Poppy is plunged into a game of cat and mouse, determined to unravel the mystery around her husband’s death. But can she handle the truth about what really happened?

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling, award-winning author of sixteen novels. Her new release UNDER MY SKIN is named one of the most anticipated and top thrillers of fall 2018 by BookBub, Bookish, Library Journal, Booklist, PopSugar and CrimeReads.

Her books are published in twenty-six languages worldwide, have sold millions of copies and have been voted “Best of the Year” or top picks by the Today show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, Amazon, Indie Booksellers, Goodreads and Sun Sentinel to name a few.

Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR and Travel+Leisure Magazine. Lisa Unger lives in the Tampa Bay area of Florida with her husband, daughter and labradoodle.


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At a time when the home ownership gap between whites and African Americans is greater than it was during the Jim Crow era, it seems important to recall some of the historical roots that gave rise to such inequality. And at a moment when the administration in the White House is actually weakening standards that banks must meet when considering community investment rather than strengthening them, the need to reflect becomes all the more urgent.

In Redlined: A Memoir of Race, Change, and Fractured Community in 1960s Chicago, author and documentarian Linda Gartz employs a trove of found documents to illuminate her family's experience of "redlining"--the marking off of areas where banks avoided making investments based on community "demographics." While the Chicago suburb of West Garfield Park is Gartz's focus here, similar events unfolded in other cities across the North, where as white-majority communities began to be integrated, banks employed discriminatory redlining, with white flight, disinvestment and community decline predictably following.

One of the interesting aspects of Linda's story is the evolution of her family on the civil rights arc: they neither took up King’s call to action, nor did they support the racist cause. Like so many white, middle Americans scared of the unknown, Gartz’s parents were at first reluctant to allow their community to be integrated. Yet they remained as their white neighbors fled, came to befriend their new neighbors, and in the end made a significant donation of real estate to a local organization that supported the Black community. The resulting picture is one of growth and change. And unafraid of tackling challenging family history, Gartz also explores the taboo subject of mental illness and the changing sexual mores of a country undergoing the tectonic shifts of the 1960s.


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Investigative historian Peter Vronsky’s new book SONS OF CAIN: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present

Peter Vronsky is widely considered an expert in this specific field of history and has been featured on true crime podcasts in anticipation of the publication of SONS OF CAIN, which takes an in-depth examination of sexual serial killers throughout human history, how they evolved, and why we are drawn to their horrifying crimes.

Delving further back into human history and deeper into the human psyche than Vronsky’s 2004 book Serial Killers, which has been called the definitive history of serial murder, SONS OF CAIN, examines our understanding of serial killing from its prehistoric anthropological evolutionary dimensions in the pre-civilization era (c. 15,000 BC) to today. However, SONS OF CAIN is not a dry academic history nor a series of encyclopedic entries but a relatable narrative filled with fascinating stories and moments of black humor

SONS OF CAIN focuses strictly on sexual serial killers: thrill killers who engage in murder, rape, torture, cannibalism and necrophilia, as opposed to for-profit serial killers, including hit men, or “political” serial killers, like terrorists or genocidal murderers. These sexual serial killers differ from all other serial killers in their motives and their foundations. They are uniquely human and—as popular culture has demonstrated—uniquely fascinating.


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Robert B. Parker's iconic and irresistible PI Sunny Randall is back in ROBERT B. PARKER’S BLOOD FEUD, written by the popular sports journalist, New York Times–bestselling author, and longtime friend of Parker, Mike Lupica. This is Lupica’s first Sunny Randall novel, and the seventh n the series. In Lupica’s first installment in the popular series, the stakes are higher than ever as Sunny Randall races to protect her ex-husband—and his Mafia family—from the vengeful plan of a mysterious rival. Sunny is “on” again with Richie Burke, the ex-husband she never stopped loving and never seemed to be able to let go, despite her discomfort with his Mafia connections. When Richie is shot and nearly killed, Sunny is dragged into the thick of his family’s business as she searches for answers and tries to stave off a Mob war. But as the bullets start flying, Sunny finds herself targeted by the deranged mastermind of the plot against the Burke family, whose motive may be far more personal than she could ever have anticipated....

Robert B. Parker was the author of seventy books, including the legendary Spenser detective series, the novels featuring Chief Jesse Stone, and the acclaimed Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch westerns as well as the Sunny Randall novels. Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award and long considered the undisputed dean of American crime fiction, he died in January 2010. Mike Lupica is a prominent sports journalist and the New York Times–bestselling author of more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction. A longtime friend to Robert B. Parker, he was selected by the Parker estate to continue the Sunny Randall series. www.mikelupicabooks.com / Twitter @mikelupica


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On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Jets' historic achievement, a nostalgic, inside look from the men who composed the team behind Joe Namath’s Super Bowl III win, filled with exclusive insights and stories from the surviving players, coaches, and management of that championship team whose victory changed the landscape of American football.

On January 12, 1969, the New York Jets astonished the nation when they beat the favored Baltimore Colts to win Super Bowl III. The key to the Jets’ success was quarterback Joe Namath, whose superstar talent, revolutionary personality, cockiness, and charm made him an instant celebrity. But Namath didn’t do it alone.

In Beyond Broadway Joe, the members of that legendary team share for the first time their often funny, sometimes poignant, and always perceptive personal stories and memorable anecdotes about the Super Bowl team, its players and coaches, and that legendary win. They reminisce about how they became Jets, their success on the gridiron—ten of them were AFC All Stars that magical year of 1968—and reveal for the first time the tactic Namath used to frustrate the Baltimore Colts’ defense. They speak about their reactions to Namath’s "guarantee" of a Jets' Super Bowl victory, and how the "39 Forgotten" Jets behind him enabled Joe to fulfill that boast. Furthermore, Lederer has interviewed members of the Baltimore team, to provide a 360-degree account of the game that changed it all. Inside, you'll learn:

How Joe Namath was able to manipulate the Baltimore Colts defense in Super Bowl III About the player who convinced Joe Namath he was a “hot date” and pranked the playboy quarterback How coach Weeb Ewbank used salaries of players on four other AFL teams to control Jets' player salaries How one Jet, whose play was limited to two games his rookie year, convinced Jets' Coach and General Manager Weeb Ewbank that he would become an all-star Why Jets' star offensive tackle Winston Hill, an eight-time All Pro tackle, was never considered, much less, elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame How Super Bowl III may have saved the existence of several AFL teams scheduled to be part of the AFL-NFL merger And much more! The Jets players reflect on their evolution from a team considered part of a "Mickey Mouse" league, through the sudden transformation caused by the signing and introduction of Joe Namath on America’s sporting scene. The book explains from different angles—including Jets’ game plans—why Jets’ coaches and players were supremely confident going into Super Bowl III. Written by a lifelong Jets’ fan, Beyond Broadway Joe captures memories—and through never-before-seen material—sheds light on what happened from the 1963 launch of the Jets to the Super Bowl season and in Super Bowl III itself.

This first complete celebration of the Jets’ Super Bowl team is a must for every Jets diehard, for fans of the old American Football League, those who follow the history of professional football, and for all who love the game.

Bob Lederer is a writer and the founder of RFL Communications. A former resident of Flushing, New York, and current Jets fan from the team’s inception in 1963, he scrupulously followed the New York Jets through its early ups and downs—and its transformation into a championship contender. The Jets’ victory on January 12, 1969, when Bob was sixteen-years-old, was the most exciting sports day in his life. Now sixty-four, he has waited years to learn the full story from Joe Namath’s teammates, and can’t wait to share the Super Bowl-winning team’s story with Jets and football fans. He lives in Illinois.


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Historian and New York Times bestselling author shares the complete biography of Thomas Cromwell, the man behind Henry VIII

Since the sixteenth century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with THOMAS CROMWELL: A Revolutionary Life, a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister.

History has not been kind to the son of a Putney brewer who became the architect of England's split with Rome. However, in THOMAS CROMWELL, MacCulloch unveils a more sympathetic figure. Was Cromwell the villain of history or the victim of its creation? MacCulloch sifted through letters and court records for answers and found Cromwell’s fingerprints on some of the most transformative decisions of Henry’s turbulent reign. However, he also found Cromwell the man, an administrative genius, and loving father.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Diarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. His books include Thomas Cranmer: A Life, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, and the Duff Cooper Prize; The Reformation: A History, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Wolfson Prize; and Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, a New York Times bestseller that won the Cundill Prize in History. An Anglican deacon, knighted in 2012, he has presented many highly celebrated documentaries for television and radio. He lives in Oxford, England.


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From award-winning sportswriter John Feinstein, a YA novel about a teen golfer poised to blaze his way into Masters Tournament history—and he’ll face secrecy, sacrifice, and the decision of a lifetime to get there.

Seventeen-year-old Frank Baker is a golfing sensation. He’s set to earn a full-ride scholarship to play at the university of his choice, but his single dad wants him to skip college and turn pro—golf has taken its toll on the family bank account, and his dad is eager to start cashing in on his son’s prowess. Frank knows he isn’t ready for life on the pro tour—regardless of the potential riches—so his swing coach enlists a professional golfer turned journalist to be Frank’s secret adviser.

Pressure mounts when, after reaching the final of the U.S. Amateur tournament, Frank wins an automatic invite to the Masters. And when the prodigy, against all odds, starts tearing up the course at Augusta National, sponsors are lined up to throw money at him—and his father. But Frank’s entry in the Masters hinges on maintaining his standing as an amateur. Can he and his secret adviser—who has his own conflicts—keep Frank’s dad at bay long enough to bring home the legendary green jacket?

John Feinstein is the author of more than thirty books, including two #1 New York Times bestsellers, A Season on the Brink and A Good Walk Spoiled. He is also the author of numerous books for young readers, including Backfield Boys and the mystery Last Shot, which won the Edgar Allan Poe Award and was also a New York Times bestseller. John is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, Golf Digest, Golf World.


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About LONG ROAD TO MERCY: Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a tiger by its toe.

It’s seared into Atlee Pine’s memory: the kidnapper’s chilling rhyme as he chose between six-year-old Atlee and her twin sister, Mercy. Mercy was taken. Atlee was spared. She never saw Mercy again. Three decades after that terrifying night, Atlee Pine works for the FBI. She’s the lone agent assigned to the Shattered Rock, Arizona resident agency, which is responsible for protecting the Grand Canyon. When one of the Grand Canyon’s mules is found stabbed to death and mutilated at the bottom of the canyon—and its rider missing— Pine is called in to investigate. It soon seems clear the lost tourist had something more clandestine than sightseeing in mind, but just as Pine begins to put together clues pointing to a terrifying plot, she’s abruptly called off the case. If she disobeys direct orders by continuing to search for the missing man, it will mean the end of her career. But unless Pine keeps working the case and discovers the truth, it could spell the very end of democracy in America as we know it. Photo Credit: Guy Bell

DAVID BALDACCI is a global #1 bestselling author, and one of the world’s favorite storytellers. His books are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with over 130 million worldwide sales. His works have been adapted for both feature film and television. David Baldacci is also the cofounder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, for more please visit DavidBaldacci.com and WishYouWellFoundation.org.


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As a young man Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. He wrote three versions of his autobiography over the course of his lifetime and published his own newspaper. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the brutality of slavery.

Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass spoke widely, often to large crowds, using his own story to condemn slavery. He broke with Garrison to become a political abolitionist, a Republican, and eventually a Lincoln supporter. By the Civil War and during Reconstruction, Douglass became the most famed and widely travelled orator in the nation. He denounced the premature end of Reconstruction and the emerging Jim Crow era. In his unique and eloquent voice, written and spoken, Douglass was a fierce critic of the United States as well as a radical patriot. He sometimes argued politically with younger African-Americans, but he never forsook either the Republican party or the cause of black civil and political rights.

In this remarkable biography, David Blight has drawn on new information held in a private collection that few other historian have consulted, as well as recently discovered issues of Douglass’s newspapers. Blight tells the fascinating story of Douglass’s two marriages and his complex extended family. Douglass was not only an astonishing man of words, but a thinker steeped in Biblical story and theology. There has not been a major biography of Douglass in a quarter century. David Blight’s Frederick Douglass affords this important American the distinguished biography he deserves.

David W. Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era; and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory; and annotated editions of Douglass’s first two autobiographies. He has worked on Douglass much of his professional life, and been awarded the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize, among others


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From New York Times bestselling historian H. W. Brands comes the riveting story of how, in nineteenth-century America, a new set of political giants battled to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and decide the future of our democracy

In the early 1800s, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning to retire to their farms. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, a champion orator known for his eloquence, spoke for the North and its business class. Henry Clay of Kentucky, as dashing as he was ambitious, embodied the hopes of the rising West. South Carolina’s John Calhoun, with piercing eyes and an even more piercing intellect, defended the South and slavery. Together these heirs of Washington, Jefferson and Adams took the country to war, battled one another for the presidency and set themselves the task of finishing the work the Founders had left undone. Their rise was marked by dramatic duels, fierce debates, scandal and political betrayal. Yet each in his own way sought to remedy the two glaring flaws in the Constitution: its refusal to specify where authority ultimately rested, with the states or the nation, and its unwillingness to address the essential incompatibility of republicanism and slavery. They wrestled with these issues for four decades, arguing bitterly and hammering out political compromises that held the Union together, but only just. Then, in 1850, when California moved to join the Union as a free state, “the immortal trio” had one last chance to save the country from the real risk of civil war. But, by that point, they had never been further apart. Thrillingly and authoritatively, H. W. Brands narrates an epic American rivalry and the little-known drama of the dangerous early years of our democracy.

ABOUT H. W. BRANDS H. W. BRANDS holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A New York Times bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to His Class


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In YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: THE BIRTH OF INGENUITY, Pulitzer Prize finalist Nick Bunker presents a fresh account of one of the most important figures in American history. From the fascinating story of the first 40 years of his life, Franklin emerges as a complex, even conflicted human being: ambitious, tough, and even ruthless as he picks his way through a harsh colonial world, but also poetic and imaginative, with strong emotions and a rebellious streak.

YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN contains a host of new discoveries about the people and incidents described in Franklin’s memoirs. Through meticulous research, Nick Bunker provides readers with a broader and deeper awareness of the world from which Franklin emerged, the early political climate of the American colonies, and the dawning of an age of science in the New World.

About the Author

Nick Bunker is the author of three non-fiction books, including An Empire on the Edge: How Britain Came to Fight America, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History and won the 2015 George Washington Prize. Born in London and educated in the UK at King’s College, Cambridge and then in New York at Columbia University, Bunker began his career as a newspaper reporter in Liverpool in the 1980s and then moved to the Financial Times. After leaving journalism he worked in the stock market in London and in corporate finance, chiefly for the HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. For many years he served on the board of the Freud Museum in Hampstead, London. Nick lives in the English cathedral city of Lincoln with his wife Sue and their otterhound, Champion Teckelgarth Mercury. Photo Credit: Michael Lionstar


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Bestselling, award-winning author shares a landmark biography of WINSTON CHURCHILL, based on extensive new material—from private letters and diaries to transcripts of war cabinet meetings

When we seek an example of unalloyed courage, the man who comes to mind is Winston Churchill: the visionary leader, immune from the consensus of the day, who stood firmly for his beliefs when everyone doubted him. But how did young Winston become Churchill? What gave him the strength to take on the superior force of Nazi Germany when bombs rained on London and so many others had caved? In CHURCHILL: WALKING WITH DESTINY, Andrew Roberts looks at what made Churchill ultimately successful and assesses how he learned from his mistakes and harnessed the experiences of his life to serve his country.

Roberts was granted access to exclusive new material: Queen Elizabeth II allowed him to study her father, King George VI’s wartime diaries, which were filled with Churchill’s jokes, critiques, and reflections on how the war was going. In addition, Roberts studied the transcripts of war cabinet meetings—the equivalent of the Nixon and JFK tapes—diaries, letters, unpublished memoirs, and detailed notes taken by King George VI after their bi-weekly meetings, all of which provide a wonderful new historical source.

Andrew Roberts is the bestselling author of The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War; Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945; and Napoleon: A Life, winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize for Biography. He has won many prizes, including the Wolfson History Prize and the British Army Military Book Award. He frequently writes for The Wall Street Journal, and is the Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He lives in London and often lectures in New York.


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Acclaimed historian shares a riveting account of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson: two beloved early Americans who forged a nation despite wildly different personalities, backgrounds, philosophies and values

New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017

Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017

No relationship in America’s history better represents our nation’s internal struggles and our remarkable ability to mend division than that of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, figureheads of America’s first political parties. And no historian is better suited to craft their dual biography than Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author Gordon S. Wood. FRIENDS DIVIDED: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, now in paperback, presents Wood’s most epic accomplishment to date. In this age of sour partisanship and polarizing news narratives, their story renews one’s pride in American principles, and provides a persuasive argument in favor of ongoing dialogue and civility in the face of bitter division.

Gordon S. Wood is the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. His books have received the Pulitzer, Bancroft and John H. Dunning prizes, as well as a National Book Award nomination and the New York Historical Society Prize in American History. They include Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, Revolutionary Characters, The Purpose of the Past, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, and The Idea of America. In 2010, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama. Photo Credit: Penguin Random House Photo.


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A conversation with Nathaniel Philbrick about his new book IN THE HURRICANE’S EYE. The book chronicles the remarkable year leading up to the siege of Yorktown, the battle that ultimately broke a years-long stalemate with the British and earned America her freedom. A narrative filled with historically misunderstood naval engagements such as the Battle of the Chesapeake, which was fought without a single American soldier, and unsung heroes lost to history like Spain’s Francisco Saavedra, who provided the French with both money and ships, IN THE HURRICANE’S EYE also highlights Washington’s underappreciated naval cunning and his fraught relationship with French leaders. The result is a surprising, thrillingly told, and revelatory conclusion to his groundbreaking series reinterpreting the American Revolution.


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A conversation with University of Albany Alum Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah about his debut collection FRIDAY BLACK. By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Nana reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that black men and women contend with every day in this country. To set the scene: think Black Mirror meets Black Lives Matters. In the knockout opening story “The Finklestein Five,” we’re confronted by a man who is acquitted after using a chainsaw to massacre five black children standing outside the library, because he feels threatened by them. It’s an absolute gutpunch. Other stories in FRIDAY BLACK look at capitalism/consumerism and racism. Photo Credit: Limitless Imprint Entertainment


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Kyle Mills talks about his new Vince Flynn/Mitch Rapp novel "Red War".

In recent years, a number of extremely dangerous world leaders have managed to increase their already considerable power. Some are busy tightening their grip on their countries like Recep Erdogan in Turkey or President Xi Jinping in China. Others, like Kim Jong-un in North Korea, already have uncontested control but are increasing their military capability. And finally, in a class by himself, is Vladimir Putin—a man who combines the dominance of the Kims with the military might of China.

For a while, I’ve been pondering what would happen if a modern dictator like Putin became physically or mentally ill. How far would he go to prevent the loss of his position? Would anyone in his inner circle have the courage to push back? And what would the rest of the world risk to rein him in?

Many of today’s dictators can’t just step down and trust that their replacement will protect them from the enemies they’ve made. Losing their edge—even for a moment—can be a matter of life or death. One moment of weakness and they could end up like Nicolae Ceausescu or Saddam Hussein.

Of all the world’s dictators, Vladimir Putin worries me the most. Credible reports suggest that he became obsessed with the gruesome videos of Muammar Gaddafi’s death, watching them over and over again. The older he gets, the more consumed he becomes with the idea that his reign might end with his body being dragged through the streets of Moscow.

With Putin as my inspiration, I started to scheme. If he became gravely ill, how would he continue to prevent his political opponents from rising up? How could he impede the foreign intelligence agencies looking to take advantage of his weakness? Who could he trust to protect him as he is transformed from de facto czar to wounded animal?

In my mind, there’s nothing someone like Vladimir Putin wouldn’t do to maintain his position—murder every Russian politician not loyal to him, go to war with America and NATO, or even use his nuclear arsenal.

Facing death on multiple fronts, he’d have nothing to lose.


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Mitch Albom talks about his new book " The Next Person You Meet in Heaven". In this enchanting sequel to the number one bestseller The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom tells the story of Eddie’s heavenly reunion with Annie—the little girl he saved on earth—in an unforgettable novel of how our lives and losses intersect.

Fifteen years ago, in Mitch Albom’s beloved novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, the world fell in love with Eddie, a grizzled war veteran- turned-amusement park mechanic who died saving the life of a young girl named Annie. Eddie’s journey to heaven taught him that every life matters. Now, in this magical sequel, Mitch Albom reveals Annie’s story.

The accident that killed Eddie left an indelible mark on Annie. It took her left hand, which needed to be surgically reattached. Injured, scarred, and unable to remember why, Annie’s life is forever changed by a guilt-ravaged mother who whisks her away from the world she knew. Bullied by her peers and haunted by something she cannot recall, Annie struggles to find acceptance as she grows. When, as a young woman, she reconnects with Paulo, her childhood love, she believes she has finally found happiness.

As the novel opens, Annie is marrying Paulo. But when her wedding night day ends in an unimaginable accident, Annie finds herself on her own heavenly journey—and an inevitable reunion with Eddie, one of the five people who will show her how her life mattered in ways she could not have fathomed.

Poignant and beautiful, filled with unexpected twists, The Next Person You Meet in Heaven reminds us that not only does every life matter, but that every ending is also a beginning—we only need to open our eyes to see it.

Mitch Albom is a bestselling novelist, a screen-writer, a playwright, and an award-winning journalist. He is the author of six consecutive number-one New York Times bestsellers and has sold more than thirty-four million copies of his books in forty-two languages worldwide. Tuesdays with Morrie, which spent four years atop the New York Times list, is the bestselling memoir of all time.

Albom has founded seven charities, including the first-ever full-time medical clinic for homeless children in America. He also operates an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He lives with his wife, Janine, in suburban Detroit.


Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/steve-richards/support