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One to Watch Author Spotlight

One to Watch is our promotion where we look at authors whose books are making news, or making noise, but whose work does not fall in a specific genre like suspense/thriller or mystery. Typically the books here will be fiction, but if we spot a nonfiction title we love, we will be quick to feature it as well. Some of these books will be debuts, but not all. They all will be books we want to scream about and share.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of One Amazing Thing

Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping them together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive.

Beth Hoffman, author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille --- the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town --- a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen.

Ken Wheaton, author of The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival

Father Steve Sibille has come home to the bayou to take charge of St. Pete’s church. Among his challenges are teenybopper altar girls, insomnia-curing confessions, and alarmingly alluring congregant Vicky Carrier.

Shandi Mitchell, author of Under This Unbroken Sky

Building to an unforgettable climax, this is the story of a 1930’s immigrant family trying to survive the harsh Canadian prairies, where small and innocent acts have enormous and catastrophic consequences.

Norman Ollestad, author of Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir Of Survival

From the age of three, Norman Ollestad was thrust into the world of surfing and competitive downhill skiing by the intense, charismatic father he both idolized and resented.

T. Greenwood, author of Two Rivers

A haunting new novel set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and civil rights movement is an examination of the power of grief, and the importance of forgiveness.

Tatiana de Rosnay, author of Sarah's Key

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a 10-year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Matt Rothschild, author of Dumbfounded: Big Money. Big Hair. Big Problems. or Why Having It All Isn't for Sissies.

The only Jewish family in a luxury Fifth Avenue building of WASPs, the senior Rothschilds took over the responsibility of raising their grandson, Matt, after his mother left him for Italy and a fourth husband.

Andrew Davidson, author of The Gargoyle

The narrator of THE GARGOYLE is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life.

Lucie Whitehouse, author of The House at Midnight

On an icy winter weekend, seven friends celebrate New Year’s Eve at Stoneborough, a grand manor in the English countryside. They’ve been brought together by Lucas Heathfield, a young man who recently inherited the property after the tragic death of his uncle Patrick.