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Douglas Preston, author of The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder

From the jungles of Honduras to macabre archaeological sites in the American Southwest, Douglas Preston's journalistic explorations have taken him across the globe. He broke the story of an extraordinary mass grave of animals killed by the asteroid impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, he explored what lay hidden in the booby-trapped Money Pit on Oak Island, and he roamed the haunted hills of Italy in search of the Monster of Florence. THE LOST TOMB brings together an astonishing and compelling collection of true stories about buried treasure, enigmatic murders, lost tombs, bizarre crimes, and other fascinating tales of the past and present.

Barbra Streisand, author of My Name Is Barbra

In a career spanning six decades, Barbra Streisand has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct and star in a major motion picture. In MY NAME IS BARBRA, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career --- from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl on stage and winning the Oscar for that performance on film. Then came a long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed.

Amanda Peters, author of The Berry Pickers

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her --- and she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

Editorial Content for A Different Kind of Gone

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pamela Kramer

Catherine Ryan Hyde's brilliant talents include her ability to write novels that make us think about our own life experiences and what others have gone through. Her characters often face dilemmas or situations that seem impossibly difficult. But as with her latest novel, A DIFFERENT KIND OF GONE, she shows that most of us are more resilient than we might believe and that people are not black and white. All of us are shades of gray --- some are more generous with better instincts than others, but none of us are complete monsters or absolute heroes. Read More

Teaser

When 19-year-old Jill Moss goes missing near the Utah-Arizona border, everyone has an opinion. Only Norma Gallagher, a search-and-rescue volunteer, knows the real story. Norma already has found Jill, huddled in a cave and terrified that her abusive boyfriend, Jake, will kill her. To protect Jill from a dangerous man, Norma quietly delivers the girl to her grateful parents in California, even though she’s conflicted. Keeping Jill safe and hidden from Jake, the press and the public will be their secret. Five years later, the disappearance stirs a new media frenzy when Jake is arrested for the murder of Jill Moss --- and Norma knows he didn’t kill her. As Jake is about to stand trial, lust for retribution inflames public opinion, and Jill’s family refuses to come forward, forcing Norma to make a life-changing decision.

Promo

When 19-year-old Jill Moss goes missing near the Utah-Arizona border, everyone has an opinion. Only Norma Gallagher, a search-and-rescue volunteer, knows the real story. Norma already has found Jill, huddled in a cave and terrified that her abusive boyfriend, Jake, will kill her. To protect Jill from a dangerous man, Norma quietly delivers the girl to her grateful parents in California, even though she’s conflicted. Keeping Jill safe and hidden from Jake, the press and the public will be their secret. Five years later, the disappearance stirs a new media frenzy when Jake is arrested for the murder of Jill Moss --- and Norma knows he didn’t kill her. As Jake is about to stand trial, lust for retribution inflames public opinion, and Jill’s family refuses to come forward, forcing Norma to make a life-changing decision.

About the Book

The truth behind a teenage girl’s disappearance becomes something to conceal in a gripping novel about justice, lies and impossible choices by New York Times bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde.

When 19-year-old Jill Moss goes missing near the Utah-Arizona border, everyone has an opinion. Only Norma Gallagher, a search-and-rescue volunteer, knows the real story.

Norma already has found Jill, huddled in a cave and terrified that her abusive boyfriend, Jake, will kill her. If he ever sees her again. To protect Jill from a dangerous man, Norma quietly delivers the girl to her grateful parents in California, even though she’s conflicted. Keeping Jill safe and hidden from Jake, the press and the public will be their secret. But secrets can’t last forever.

Five years later, the disappearance stirs a new media frenzy when Jake is arrested for the murder of Jill Moss --- and Norma knows he didn’t kill her. As Jake is about to stand trial, lust for retribution inflames public opinion and Jill’s family refuses to come forward, forcing Norma to make a life-changing decision.

What are the consequences if she stays silent? And what are the risks if she dares to finally tell the truth?

Audiobook available, read by Patricia Shade

Editorial Content for Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song

Reviewer (text)

Barbara Bamberger Scott

BECOMING ELLA FITZGERALD is Judith Tick’s unique and valuable biography of one of the 20th century’s greatest singers. Ella Fitzgerald’s musical style has been and will continue to be cherished by those who share her wide range of genres, songs and syllables. Read More

Teaser

In this first major biography since Ella Fitzgerald’s death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. BECOMING ELLA FITZGERALD clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer’s difficult childhood in Yonkers, New York, the tragic death of her mother, and the year she spent in a girls’ reformatory school --- where she sang in its renowned choir and dreamed of being a dancer. Rarely seen profiles from the Black press offer precious glimpses of Fitzgerald’s tense experiences of racial discrimination and her struggles with constricting models of Black and white femininity at midcentury.

Promo

In this first major biography since Ella Fitzgerald’s death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. BECOMING ELLA FITZGERALD clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer’s difficult childhood in Yonkers, New York, the tragic death of her mother, and the year she spent in a girls’ reformatory school --- where she sang in its renowned choir and dreamed of being a dancer. Rarely seen profiles from the Black press offer precious glimpses of Fitzgerald’s tense experiences of racial discrimination and her struggles with constricting models of Black and white femininity at midcentury.

About the Book

A landmark biography that reclaims Ella Fitzgerald as a major American artist and modernist innovator.

Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) possessed one of the 20th century’s most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald’s death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist.

BECOMING ELLA FITZGERALD clears up long-enduring mysteries. Archival research and in-depth family interviews shed new light on the singer’s difficult childhood in Yonkers, New York, the tragic death of her mother, and the year she spent in a girls’ reformatory school --- where she sang in its renowned choir and dreamed of being a dancer. Rarely seen profiles from the Black press offer precious glimpses of Fitzgerald’s tense experiences of racial discrimination and her struggles with constricting models of Black and white femininity at midcentury.

Tick’s compelling narrative depicts Fitzgerald’s complicated career in fresh and original detail, upending the traditional view that segregates vocal jazz from the genre’s mainstream. As she navigated the shifting tides between jazz and pop, she used her originality to pioneer modernist vocal jazz. Interpreting long-lost setlists, reviews from both white and Black newspapers, and newly released footage and recordings, the book explores how Ella’s transcendence as an improvisor produced onstage performances every bit as significant as her historic recorded oeuvre.

From the singer’s first performance at the Apollo Theatre’s famous “Amateur Night” to the Savoy Ballroom, where Fitzgerald broke through with Chick Webb’s big band in the 1930s, Tick evokes the jazz world in riveting detail. She describes how Ella helped shape the bebop movement in the 1940s, as she joined Dizzy Gillespie and her then-husband, Ray Brown, in the world-touring Jazz at the Philharmonic, one of the first moments of high-culture acceptance for the disreputable art form.

Breaking ground as a female bandleader, Fitzgerald refuted expectations of musical Blackness, deftly balancing artistic ambition and market expectations. Her legendary exploration of the Great American Songbook in the 1950s fused a Black vocal aesthetic and jazz improvisation to revolutionize the popular repertoire. This hybridity often confounded critics, yet throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Ella reached audiences around the world, electrifying concert halls and sold millions of records.

A masterful biography, BECOMING ELLA FITZGERALD describes a powerful woman who set a standard for American excellence nearly unmatched in the 20th century.

Editorial Content for The Final Curtain

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

Keigo Higashino, courtesy of translator Giles Murray, bring us THE FINAL CURTAIN, which features Japan's answer to Hercule Poirot: Detective Kyoichiro “Kyo” Kaga. Though he may not have the famous Belgian sleuth's handsome moustache, he does share his gift of deep thinking and ability to see what others might not in any case he works. Read More

Teaser

A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. She lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo --- and neither her family nor her friends have any idea why she would have gone there. Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo --- the other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga's missing mother.

Promo

A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. She lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo --- and neither her family nor her friends have any idea why she would have gone there. Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo. The other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga's missing mother.

About the Book

From the acclaimed author of MALICE and NEWCOMER, a confounding murder in Tokyo is connected to the mystery of the disappearance and death of Detective Kaga's own mother.

A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions.

Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo --- and neither her family nor her friends have any idea why she would have gone there.

Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo. The other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the police search through Oshitani's past for any clue that might shed some light, one of the detectives reaches out to Detective Kaga for advice. As the case unfolds, an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long-ago case of Detective Kaga's missing mother.

THE FINAL CURTAIN, one of Keigo Higashino's most acclaimed mysteries, brings the story of Detective Kaga to a surprising conclusion in a series of rich, surprising twists.

Audiobook available, read by P.J. Ochlan

Editorial Content for The Curse of Penryth Hall: A Ruby Vaughn Mystery

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Megan Elliott

When Ruby Vaughn’s boss asks her to deliver a mysterious trunk of rare books to a man in Cornwall, she has no idea that she’ll be thrust into a complex --- and possibly supernatural --- mystery. Read More

Teaser

After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and housemate in Exeter. She’s avoided dwelling on the past, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she’d never return. A foreboding fortress, Penryth Hall is home to Ruby’s once dearest friend, Tamsyn, and her husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. It’s an unsettling place, and after a more unsettling evening, Ruby is eager to depart. But her plans change when Penryth’s bells ring for the first time in 30 years. Edward is dead; he met a gruesome end in the orchard, and with his death brings whispers of a returned curse.

Promo

After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and housemate in Exeter. She’s avoided dwelling on the past, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she’d never return. A foreboding fortress, Penryth Hall is home to Ruby’s once dearest friend, Tamsyn, and her husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. It’s an unsettling place, and after a more unsettling evening, Ruby is eager to depart. But her plans change when Penryth’s bells ring for the first time in 30 years. Edward is dead; he met a gruesome end in the orchard, and with his death brings whispers of a returned curse.

About the Book

An atmospheric gothic mystery that beautifully brings the ancient Cornish countryside to life, Armstrong introduces heroine Ruby Vaughn in her Minotaur Books & Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut, THE CURSE OF PENRYTH HALL. 

After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and housemate in Exeter. She’s avoided dwelling on the past, even before the war, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she’d never return. A more sensible soul would have delivered the package and left without rehashing old wounds. But no one has ever accused Ruby of being sensible. Thus begins her visit to Penryth Hall.

A foreboding fortress, Penryth Hall is home to Ruby’s once dearest friend, Tamsyn, and her husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. It’s an unsettling place, and after a more unsettling evening, Ruby is eager to depart. But her plans change when Penryth’s bells ring for the first time in 30 years. Edward is dead; he met a gruesome end in the orchard, and with his death brings whispers of a returned curse. It also brings Ruan Kivell, the person whose books brought her to Cornwall, the one the locals call a Pellar, the man they believe can break the curse. Ruby doesn’t believe in curses --- or Pellars --- but this is Cornwall and to these villagers the curse is anything but lore, and they believe it will soon claim its next victim: Tamsyn.

To protect her friend, Ruby must work alongside the Pellar to find out what really happened in the orchard that night.

Audiobook available, read by Emma Love

Editorial Content for Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

As soon as the most intense months of the COVID-19 pandemic started to wane, many of my friends and family’s first thoughts turned to travel, eager to book the cruises and treks that had been only the stuff of imagination for so long. Some stoked their imaginary journeys by reading travel guidebooks or essays. But, as Shahnaz Habib’s excellent new book points out, these resources only provide part of the story. Read More

Teaser

Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, AIRPLANE MODE parses who gets to travel and who gets to write about the experience. All the while, Habib threads the historic but ever-evolving dynamics of travel into her personal history as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom round trips are an annual fact of life. Woven throughout the book are inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, trains, the idea of wanderlust itself. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism. But as any traveler knows, travel is more than that. As an immigrant whose loved ones live across continents, Habib takes a deeply curious and joyful look at a troubled and beloved activity.

Promo

Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, AIRPLANE MODE parses who gets to travel and who gets to write about the experience. All the while, Habib threads the historic but ever-evolving dynamics of travel into her personal history as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom round trips are an annual fact of life. Woven throughout the book are inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, trains, the idea of wanderlust itself. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism. But as any traveler knows, travel is more than that. As an immigrant whose loved ones live across continents, Habib takes a deeply curious and joyful look at a troubled and beloved activity.

About the Book

This witty personal and cultural history of travel from the perspective of a Third World-raised woman of color, AIRPLANE MODE, asks: What does it mean to be a joyous traveler when we live in the ruins of colonialism, capitalism and climate change?

The conditions of travel have long been dictated by the color of passports and the color of skin.

For Shahnaz Habib, travel and travel writing have always been complicated pleasures. Tracing the power dynamics that underlie tourism, this insightful debut parses who gets to travel and who gets to write about the experience. All the while, Habib threads the historic but ever-evolving dynamics of travel into her personal history as a child on family vacations in India, an adult curious about the world, and an immigrant for whom round trips are an annual fact of life.

Woven throughout the book are inviting and playful analyses of obvious and not-so-obvious travel artifacts: passports, carousels, bougainvilleas, guidebooks, trains, the idea of wanderlust itself. Together, they tell a subversive history of travel as a Euro-American mode of consumerism. But as any traveler knows, travel is more than that. As an immigrant whose loved ones live across continents, Habib takes a deeply curious and joyful look at a troubled and beloved activity.

Editorial Content for Please Tell Me

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pamela Kramer

I really liked the premise of PLEASE TELL ME by Mike Omer. An eight-year-old is abducted and then returned, but she refuses to talk about her ordeal or anything else. She begins seeing a local therapist, and what she reveals is unsettling, to say the least. Read More

Teaser

When eight-year-old Kathy Stone turns up on the side of the road a year after her abduction, the world awaits her harrowing story. But she doesn’t speak at all, not even to her own parents. Child therapist Robin Hart is the only one who’s had success connecting with the girl. Robin has been using play therapy to help Kathy process her memories. But as their work continues, Kathy’s playtime takes a grim turn: a doll stabs another doll, a tiny figurine is chained to a plastic toy couch. All of these horrifying moments, enacted within a Victorian doll house. Every session, another toy dies. But the most disturbing detail? Kathy seems to be playacting real unsolved murders. Soon Robin wonders if Kathy not only holds the key to the murders of the past but if she knows something about the murders of the future.

Promo

When eight-year-old Kathy Stone turns up on the side of the road a year after her abduction, the world awaits her harrowing story. But she doesn’t speak at all, not even to her own parents. Child therapist Robin Hart is the only one who’s had success connecting with the girl. Robin has been using play therapy to help Kathy process her memories. But as their work continues, Kathy’s playtime takes a grim turn: a doll stabs another doll, a tiny figurine is chained to a plastic toy couch. All of these horrifying moments, enacted within a Victorian doll house. Every session, another toy dies. But the most disturbing detail? Kathy seems to be playacting real unsolved murders. Soon Robin wonders if Kathy not only holds the key to the murders of the past but if she knows something about the murders of the future.

About the Book

After a year in captivity, a kidnapped child escapes --- only to reveal horrific truths that lead her psychologist on a race against time --- in this thriller from New York Times bestselling author Mike Omer.

When eight-year-old Kathy Stone turns up on the side of the road a year after her abduction, the world awaits her harrowing story. But Kathy doesn’t say a word. Traumatized by her ordeal, she doesn’t speak at all, not even to her own parents.

Child therapist Robin Hart is the only one who’s had success connecting with the girl. Robin has been using play therapy to help Kathy process her memories. But as their work continues, Kathy’s playtime takes a grim turn: a doll stabs another doll, a tiny figurine is chained to a plastic toy couch. All of these horrifying moments, enacted within a Victorian doll house. Every session, another toy dies.

But the most disturbing detail? Kathy seems to be playacting real unsolved murders.

Soon Robin wonders if Kathy not only holds the key to the murders of the past but if she knows something about the murders of the future. Can Robin unlock the secrets in Kathy’s brain and stop a serial killer before he strikes again? Or is Robin’s work with Kathy putting her in the killer’s sights?

Audiobook available, read by Marcella Cox

Editorial Content for Technically Yours

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

Pearl Harris is excited to be moving back home to Chicago after spending a few years in California. She has a great new job at OurCode, a nonprofit whose mission --- helping girls and nonbinary youth gain experience in tech fields --- she believes in deeply. But the night of her first big fundraising dinner throws her more than one curveball. Read More

Teaser

Pearl Harris has learned the hard way to be careful in work and in love. She has the chance to make lasting change at OurCode --- a nonprofit aimed at inspiring high schoolers to code --- but a recent scandal puts its reputation at risk. Further complicating things, Pearl didn't expect the one man she never stopped thinking about to join as the newest member of her board of directors. Cord Matthews fell for Pearl when they met in an elevator eight years ago. But when she broke his heart, he decided love wasn't for him. When they reconnect after years with no contact, Cord is tempted to consider breaking his ban on serious relationships. But going public with a romance between them might derail Pearl’s career and the progress she’s made at OurCode.

Promo

Pearl Harris has learned the hard way to be careful in work and in love. She has the chance to make lasting change at OurCode --- a nonprofit aimed at inspiring high schoolers to code --- but a recent scandal puts its reputation at risk. Further complicating things, Pearl didn't expect the one man she never stopped thinking about to join as the newest member of her board of directors. Cord Matthews fell for Pearl when they met in an elevator eight years ago. But when she broke his heart, he decided love wasn't for him. When they reconnect after years with no contact, Cord is tempted to consider breaking his ban on serious relationships. But going public with a romance between them might derail Pearl’s career and the progress she’s made at OurCode.

About the Book

Eight years ago, he fell in love with a stranger he couldn’t have. Today, she’s back in his life and the sparks between them threaten to set her career on fire.

Pearl Harris has learned the hard way to be careful in work and in love. She has the chance to make lasting change at OurCode --- a nonprofit aimed at inspiring high schoolers to code --- but a recent scandal puts its reputation at risk. Further complicating things, Pearl didn't expect the one man she never stopped thinking about to join as the newest member of her board of directors.

Cord Matthews fell for Pearl when they met in an elevator eight years ago. She’s just his type: smart, capable and makes him laugh, but when she broke his heart, he decided love wasn't for him. When they reconnect after years with no contact, Cord is tempted to consider breaking his ban on serious relationships. But going public with a romance between them might derail Pearl’s career and the progress she’s made at OurCode.

While Pearl and Cord are both hesitant to trust their feelings and take a risk, it soon becomes impossible to keep ignoring the electricity between them. Cord is a skilled programmer, but a workplace romance might spell disaster for both of them --- and love isn’t easily debugged.

Audiobook available, read by January LaVoy and Joe Arden