Joni Lark is one of the most coveted songwriters in LA, yet she can’t write. There’s an emptiness inside her, and nothing seems to fill it. When she returns to her hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, she hopes it will spark inspiration. But when she gets there, nothing is how she left it. How can Joni write when her world is leaving her behind? Until she hears it. A melody in her head, lyric-less and half-formed, and an alluring and addictive voice to go with it --- belonging, apparently, to a wry musician with an emptiness of his own. Surely, he’s a figment of Joni’s overworked imagination. Then a very real man shows up in Vienna Shores. He’s arrogant and guarded, and he has a plan for breaking their inconvenient telepathic connection: finish the song haunting them both and hope they don’t risk their hearts --- or their secrets --- in the process.

Joni Lark is one of the most coveted songwriters in LA, yet she can’t write. There’s an emptiness inside her, and nothing seems to fill it. When she returns to her hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, she hopes it will spark inspiration. But when she gets there, nothing is how she left it. How can Joni write when her world is leaving her behind? Until she hears it. A melody in her head, lyric-less and half-formed, and an alluring and addictive voice to go with it --- belonging, apparently, to a wry musician with an emptiness of his own. Surely, he’s a figment of Joni’s overworked imagination. Then a very real man shows up in Vienna Shores. He’s arrogant and guarded, and he has a plan for breaking their inconvenient telepathic connection: finish the song haunting them both and hope they don’t risk their hearts --- or their secrets --- in the process.

A hitmaking songwriter and a bitter musician share a startling and inexplicable connection that they’ll do anything to shake, in the next sparkling, magical book from the New York Times bestselling author of THE SEVEN YEAR SLIP and A NOVEL LOVE STORY.

Joni Lark has a secret. She’s one of the most coveted songwriters in LA, and yet she can’t write. There’s an emptiness inside her, and nothing seems to fill it.

When she returns to her hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, she hopes that the sand, the surf and the concerts at The Revelry, her family’s music venue, will spark inspiration. But when Joni gets there, nothing is how she left it. Her best friend is hiding something, her mother’s memories are fading fast, and The Revelry is closing.

How can Joni write when her world is leaving her behind?

Until she hears it. A melody in her head, lyric-less and half-formed, and an alluring and addictive voice to go with it --- belonging, apparently, to a wry musician with an emptiness of his own.

Surely, he’s a figment of Joni’s overworked imagination.

Then a very real man shows up in Vienna Shores. He’s arrogant and guarded --- nothing like the sweet, funny voice in Joni’s head --- and he has a plan for breaking their inconvenient telepathic connection: finish the song haunting them both and hope they don’t risk their hearts --- or their secrets --- in the process.

Because that melody, the one drawing them together...what if it’s there for a reason?

Audiobook available, read by Patti Murin

Decades after the end of World War II, the name Ravensbrück still evokes horror for those with knowledge of this infamous all-women’s concentration camp, better known since it became the setting of Martha Hall Kelly’s bestselling novel, LILAC GIRLS. Particularly shocking were the medical experiments performed on some of the inmates. Ravensbrück was atypical in other ways as well, not just as the only all-female German concentration camp, but because 80 percent of its inmates were political prisoners, among them a tight-knit group of women who had been active in the French Resistance. Already well-practiced in sabotaging the Nazis in occupied France, these women joined forces to defy their German captors and keep one another alive.

Decades after the end of World War II, the name Ravensbrück still evokes horror for those with knowledge of this infamous all-women’s concentration camp, better known since it became the setting of Martha Hall Kelly’s bestselling novel, LILAC GIRLS. Particularly shocking were the medical experiments performed on some of the inmates. Ravensbrück was atypical in other ways as well, not just as the only all-female German concentration camp, but because 80 percent of its inmates were political prisoners, among them a tight-knit group of women who had been active in the French Resistance. Already well-practiced in sabotaging the Nazis in occupied France, these women joined forces to defy their German captors and keep one another alive.

The extraordinary true story of a small group of Frenchwomen, all Resistance members, who banded together in a notorious concentration camp to defy the Nazis --- from the New York Times bestselling author of MADAME FOURCADE'S SECRET WAR.

Decades after the end of World War II, the name Ravensbrück still evokes horror for those with knowledge of this infamous all-women’s concentration camp, better known since it became the setting of Martha Hall Kelly’s bestselling novel, LILAC GIRLS. Particularly shocking were the medical experiments performed on some of the inmates. Ravensbrück was atypical in other ways as well, not just as the only all-female German concentration camp, but because 80 percent of its inmates were political prisoners, among them a tight-knit group of women who had been active in the French Resistance.

Already well-practiced in sabotaging the Nazis in occupied France, these women joined forces to defy their German captors and keep one another alive. The sisterhood’s members, amid unimaginable terror and brutality, subverted Germany’s war effort by refusing to do assigned work. They risked death for any infraction, but that did not stop them from defying their SS tormentors at every turn --- even staging a satirical musical revue about the horrors of the camp.

After the war, when many in France wanted to focus only on the future, the women from Ravensbrück refused to allow their achievements, needs and sacrifices to be erased. They banded together once more, first to support one another in healing their bodies and minds and then to continue their crusade for freedom and justice --- an effort that would have repercussions for their country and the world into the 21st century.

Audiobook available, read by Lisa Flanagan

Charles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist statesman who suffered a brutal caning on the Senate floor by the proslavery congressman Preston Brooks in 1856. This violent episode has obscured Sumner’s status as the most passionate champion of equal rights and multiracial democracy of his time. A friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, an ally of Frederick Douglass, and an adviser to Abraham Lincoln, Sumner helped the Union win the Civil War and ordain the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. In this comprehensive but fast-paced narrative, Zaakir Tameez presents Sumner as one of America’s forgotten founding fathers, a constitutional visionary who helped to rewrite the post–Civil War Constitution and give birth to modern civil rights law.

Charles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist statesman who suffered a brutal caning on the Senate floor by the proslavery congressman Preston Brooks in 1856. This violent episode has obscured Sumner’s status as the most passionate champion of equal rights and multiracial democracy of his time. A friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, an ally of Frederick Douglass, and an adviser to Abraham Lincoln, Sumner helped the Union win the Civil War and ordain the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. In this comprehensive but fast-paced narrative, Zaakir Tameez presents Sumner as one of America’s forgotten founding fathers, a constitutional visionary who helped to rewrite the post–Civil War Constitution and give birth to modern civil rights law.

A landmark biography of Charles Sumner, the unsung hero of the American Civil War and Reconstruction.

Charles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist statesman who suffered a brutal caning on the Senate floor by the proslavery congressman Preston Brooks in 1856. This violent episode has obscured Sumner’s status as the most passionate champion of equal rights and multiracial democracy of his time. A friend of Alexis de Tocqueville, an ally of Frederick Douglass, and an adviser to Abraham Lincoln, Sumner helped the Union win the Civil War and ordain the Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

In a comprehensive but fast-paced narrative, Zaakir Tameez presents Sumner as one of America’s forgotten founding fathers, a constitutional visionary who helped to rewrite the post–Civil War Constitution and give birth to modern civil rights law. He argues that Sumner was a gay man who battled with love and heartbreak at a time when homosexuality wasn’t well understood or accepted. And he explores Sumner’s critical partnerships with the nation’s first generation of Black lawyers and civil rights leaders, whose legal contributions to Reconstruction have been overlooked for far too long.

An extraordinary achievement of historical and constitutional scholarship, CHARLES SUMNER brings back to life one of America’s most inspiring statesmen, whose formidable ideas remain relevant to a nation still divided over questions of race, democracy and constitutional law.

Anders is a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlists in the Civil War to shape the American Future --- as soon as he figures out what that is, who it includes, and why everyone wants him to die for it. Escaping his violently insane mother is a bonus. Anders finds honor as a proud Union flag twirler --- until he’s captured. Then he tries life as a diehard Confederate --- until fate asks him to die hard for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. Barely alive, Anders limps into a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform. His new brothers include a science-fiction playwright, a Haitian double agent, and a former slave feuding with God. Despite his best efforts, Anders starts seeing the war through their eyes, sparking ill-timed questions about who gets to be American or exploit the theater of war. 

Anders is a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlists in the Civil War to shape the American Future --- as soon as he figures out what that is, who it includes, and why everyone wants him to die for it. Escaping his violently insane mother is a bonus. Anders finds honor as a proud Union flag twirler --- until he’s captured. Then he tries life as a diehard Confederate --- until fate asks him to die hard for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. Barely alive, Anders limps into a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform. His new brothers include a science-fiction playwright, a Haitian double agent, and a former slave feuding with God. Despite his best efforts, Anders starts seeing the war through their eyes, sparking ill-timed questions about who gets to be American or exploit the theater of war. 

HOW TO DODGE A CANNONBALL is a razor-sharp satire that dives into the heart of the Civil War, hilariously questioning the essence of the fight, not just for territory, but for the soul of America.

HOW TO DODGE A CANNONBALL is funnier than the Civil War should ever be. It follows Anders, a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlists to shape the American Future --- as soon as he figures out what that is, who it includes, and why everyone wants him to die for it. Escaping his violently insane mother is a bonus.

Anders finds honor as a proud Union flag twirler --- until he’s captured. Then he tries life as a diehard Confederate --- until fate asks him to die hard for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. Barely alive, Anders limps into a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform. While visibly white, he claims to be an octoroon, and they claim to believe him. Only then does his life get truly strange.

His new brothers are even stranger, including a science-fiction playwright, a Haitian double agent and a former slave feuding with God. Despite his best efforts, Anders starts seeing the war through their eyes, sparking ill-timed questions about who gets to be American or exploit the theater of war. Dennard Dayle’s satire spares no one as doomed charges, draft riots, gleeful arms dealers and native suppression campaigns test everyone’s definition of loyalty.

Uproariously funny and revelatory, HOW TO DODGE A CANNONBALL asks if America is worth fighting for. And then answers loudly. Read it while it’s still legal.

Audiobook available, read by William DeMeritt

Having recently moved from London to a small Cornish seaside village, Nova Davies started a book club at the local community center. But the five members disagree on everything, and a significant sum of money is stolen during one of the meetings, putting the much-loved community center at risk. Suspicion for the theft falls on book club member Michael, especially when he disappears and a dead body turns up at his house. Agatha Christie superfan Phyllis is determined to prove Michael has been framed, while romance reader Arthur believes there is a mystery woman involved, and teenage sci-fi fan Ash thinks dark forces are at play. While trying to locate Michael, solve the murder and recover the stolen money, each of them has their own secrets to protect.

Having recently moved from London to a small Cornish seaside village, Nova Davies started a book club at the local community center. But the five members disagree on everything, and a significant sum of money is stolen during one of the meetings, putting the much-loved community center at risk. Suspicion for the theft falls on book club member Michael, especially when he disappears and a dead body turns up at his house. Agatha Christie superfan Phyllis is determined to prove Michael has been framed, while romance reader Arthur believes there is a mystery woman involved, and teenage sci-fi fan Ash thinks dark forces are at play. While trying to locate Michael, solve the murder and recover the stolen money, each of them has their own secrets to protect.

They can’t even agree on what to read, so how are they going to solve a murder?

Having recently moved from London to a small Cornish seaside village, Nova Davies started a book club at the local community center, but so far it’s a disaster. The five members disagree on everything, and to make matters worse, a significant sum of money is stolen during one of the meetings, putting the much-loved community center at risk.

Suspicion for the theft falls on book club member Michael, especially when he disappears and a dead body turns up at his house. But the book club has their own theories. Agatha Christie superfan Phyllis is determined to prove Michael has been framed, while romance reader Arthur believes there is a mystery woman involved, and teenage sci-fi fan Ash thinks dark forces are at play.

While trying to locate Michael, solve the murder and recover the stolen money, each of them has their own secrets to protect. But despite the danger closing in, they won’t rest until they’ve cracked the case and gotten everyone safe at home with a book, where they belong.

Audiobook available, read by Daphne Kouma