Adult

A Black author sets out on a cross-country publicity tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives HELL OF A BOOK and is the scaffolding of something much larger and urgent. Jason Mott’s novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour. While this book entertains and is at once about family, love of parents and children, art and money, it’s also about the nation’s reckoning with a tragic police shooting playing over and over again on the news. And with what it can mean to be Black in America. Who has been killed? Who is The Kid? Will the author finish his book tour, and what kind of world will he leave behind?

Ruby Heartwood, a traveling psychic, has always lived a life on the move. She needs no one, and no one needs her. Until one night, when she is camped by the side of the road, a fierce thunder and lightning storm erupts. In the middle of the downpour, she hears a distinct voice telling her to "let me in." In jumps a little black and white dog, and to Ruby's astonishment, she can hear the dog's thoughts. Has she been struck by lightning? Did the storm do this? Is she losing her mind? It turns out that Ruby can hear many dogs' thoughts. She decides to set up semi-permanent residency in the town of Harmony Farms until she can sort out what is going on and who the dog, Hitch, belongs to. But some people in Harmony Farms don't want her there. And it seems that events keep preventing Ruby from leaving.

The year is 1969, and the Bayleen Island Folk Fest is abuzz with one name: Jesse Reid. Jesse’s intricate guitar riffs and supple baritone are poised to tip from fame to legend with this one headlining performance. That is, until his motorcycle crashes on the way to the show. Jane Quinn and her bandmates are asked to play in his place at the festival, and Jane delivers the performance of a lifetime. Jesse stays on the island to recover and strikes up a friendship with Jane, which soon turns into a passionate love affair. When Jane stumbles on the dark secret beneath Jesse’s music, she must reckon with the shadows of her own past. What follows is the birth of one of the most iconic albums of all time. 

Luke Nolan has led the Hope congregation for more than a decade, while his wife and daughters have patiently upheld what it means to live righteously. Made famous by a viral sermon on purity co-written with his eldest daughter, Abigail, Luke is a spellbinding speaker. But his younger daughter, Caroline, has begun to notice the cracks in their comfortable life. She is certain that her perfect, pristine sister is about to marry the wrong man --- and Caroline has slid into sin with a boy she’s known her entire life, wondering why God would care so much about her virginity anyway. When it comes to light, five weeks before Abigail’s wedding, that Luke has been lying to his family, the entire Nolan clan falls into a tailspin.

Long Island homicide detective Maggie D'arcy and her teenage daughter, Lilly, are still recovering from the events of last fall when a strange new case demands Maggie's attention. The body of an unidentified Irish national turns up in a wealthy Long Island beach community. With little to go on but the scars on his back, Maggie once again teams up with Garda detectives in Ireland to find out who the man was and what he was doing on Long Island. As she gets closer to the truth about the murder, what she learns leads her back to her home turf and into range of a dangerous and determined killer who will do anything to keep the victim's story hidden forever.

Elfreda Raughn will avoid pregnancy if it kills her, and one way or another, it will kill her. Though she’s able to stomach her gruesome day-to-day duties, the reality of preserving the Sisterhood of Aytrium’s magical bloodline horrifies her. She wants out, whatever the cost. So when a shadowy faction approaches Elfreda with an offer of escape, she leaps at the opportunity. As their spy, she gains access to the highest reaches of the Sisterhood, and enters a glittering world of opulent parties, subtle deceptions and unexpected bloodshed.

In January 1995, a promising young musician was found murdered in her apartment in West Los Angeles. There were no eyewitnesses to the crime, but someone saw her arguing with her ex-boyfriend, an African American man, the day before she was found dead. With the city in the throes of the O.J. Simpson trial at the time, the LAPD was not about to let another African American skip town after killing a white woman. They arrested the ex-boyfriend on circumstantial evidence but ignored other evidence found at the scene of the crime that did not support their case. This collection of evidence, and the LAPD's questionable tactics, did not sit well with the younger of two deputy district attorneys assigned to the case.

Brandon P. Fleming grew up in an abusive home and was shuffled through school, his passing grades a nod to his skill on the basketball court, not his presence in the classroom. He turned to the streets and drug deals by 14, saved only by the dream of basketball stardom. When he suffered a career-ending injury during his first semester at a Division I school, he dropped out of college, toiling on an assembly line, until depression drove him to the edge. Miraculously, his life was spared. Returning to college, Fleming was determined to reinvent himself as a scholar --- to replace illiteracy with mastery over language, to go from being ignored and unseen to commanding attention.

Emmy Award–winning television announcer and interviewer Michael Kay’s 18 years as host of “CenterStage” have given him access to many remarkable figures in sports and entertainment. Now, this selection of the best, most revealing --- and often surprising --- interviews are available in one collection, including some behind-the-scenes stories that didn’t appear on camera. Among the interviews featured in the book are those with Red Auerbach, Charles Barkley, Mike Tyson, Bobby Orr, Sly Stallone, Jay-Z, Lorne Michaels, Paul Simon, John McEnroe, Rob Reiner, Seth Meyers, Serena Williams, Alan Alda, David Halberstam, Larry David, Bob Costas, Billy Crystal, Lindsey Vonn, Chris Evert and Quentin Tarantino.

Oliver Park, a recovering addict from Indiana, finally has everything he ever wanted: sobriety and a loving, wealthy partner in Nathan, a prominent DC trauma surgeon. Despite their difference in age and disparate backgrounds, they've made a perfect life together. With everything to lose, Oliver shouldn't be visiting Haus, a gay bathhouse. But through the entrance he goes, and it's a line crossed. Inside, he follows a man into a private room, and it's the final line. Everything goes wrong, terribly wrong, and Oliver barely escapes with his life. He races home in full-blown terror as the hand-shaped bruise grows dark on his neck. The truth will destroy Nathan and everything they have together, so Oliver does the thing he used to do so well: he lies.