Skip to main content

Editorial Content for The Skin Above My Knee: A Memoir

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Bianca Ambrosio

Many artists know the chilling way that fear of failure can creep up on them after not practicing their art for days or even weeks. For Marcia Butler --- the narrator of the frank yet emotional memoir THE SKIN ABOVE MY KNEE --- missing one day of the oboe is not only taboo, but a bad omen. Something terrible will happen, she is sure. As a kid, Butler is introduced to Kirsten Flagstad singing the aria “Liebestod” from the opera Tristan und Isolde while her mother vacuums with a Hoover. It’s a good thing she can still hear the music. Read More

Teaser

Music was everything for Marcia Butler. Growing up in an emotionally desolate home with an abusive father and a distant mother, she devoted herself to the discipline and rigor of the oboe, and quickly became a young prodigy on the rise in New York City's competitive music scene. But haunted by troubling childhood memories while balancing the challenges of a busy life as a working musician, Marcia succumbed to dangerous men, drugs and self-destruction. In her darkest moments, she asked the hardest question of all: Could music truly save her life? THE SKIN ABOVE MY KNEE is the story of a woman finding strength in her creative gifts and artistic destiny.

Promo

Music was everything for Marcia Butler. Growing up in an emotionally desolate home with an abusive father and a distant mother, she devoted herself to the discipline and rigor of the oboe, and quickly became a young prodigy on the rise in New York City's competitive music scene. But haunted by troubling childhood memories while balancing the challenges of a busy life as a working musician, Marcia succumbed to dangerous men, drugs and self-destruction. In her darkest moments, she asked the hardest question of all: Could music truly save her life? THE SKIN ABOVE MY KNEE is the story of a woman finding strength in her creative gifts and artistic destiny.

About the Book

The unflinching story of a professional oboist who finds order and beauty in music as her personal life threatens to destroy her.

Music was everything for Marcia Butler. Growing up in an emotionally desolate home with an abusive father and a distant mother, she devoted herself to the discipline and rigor of the oboe, and quickly became a young prodigy on the rise in New York City's competitive music scene. 

But haunted by troubling childhood memories while balancing the challenges of a busy life as a working musician, Marcia succumbed to dangerous men, drugs and self-destruction. In her darkest moments, she asked the hardest question of all: Could music truly save her life?

A memoir of startling honesty and subtle, profound beauty, THE SKIN ABOVE MY KNEE is the story of a woman finding strength in her creative gifts and artistic destiny. Filled with vivid portraits of 1970's New York City, and fascinating insights into the intensity and precision necessary for a career in professional music, this is more than a narrative of a brilliant musician struggling to make it big in the big city. It is the story of a survivor.

Audiobook available, read by Marcia Butler

Editorial Content for The Devil Crept In

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

In the small town of Deer Valley, Oregon, the legend of the murder of six-year-old Max Larsen looms large. Max disappeared into the dense woods while walking his dog, and his bones were eventually found miles from home. That tale and those dark and spooky woods don’t deter 10-year-old Stevie Clark and his 12-year-old cousin and best friend, Jude Brighton, from hanging out in the woods, building a fort and escaping from their troubled homes. Read More

Teaser

Young Jude Brighton has been missing for three days, and while the search for him is in full swing in the small town of Deer Valley, Oregon, the locals are starting to lose hope. Stevie Clark knows what each ticking moment may mean for his cousin, Jude. There was Max Larsen, a young boy who was found dead after also disappearing under mysterious circumstances. And then there were the animals: pets gone missing out of yards. For years, the residents of Deer Valley have murmured about these unsolved crimes…and that a killer may still be lurking around their quiet town. For Stevie, who is determined to find out what really happened to Jude, the awful truth may be too horrifying to imagine.

Promo

Young Jude Brighton has been missing for three days, and while the search for him is in full swing in the small town of Deer Valley, Oregon, the locals are starting to lose hope. Stevie Clark knows what each ticking moment may mean for his cousin, Jude. There was Max Larsen, a young boy who was found dead after also disappearing under mysterious circumstances. And then there were the animals: pets gone missing out of yards. For years, the residents of Deer Valley have murmured about these unsolved crimes…and that a killer may still be lurking around their quiet town. For Stevie, who is determined to find out what really happened to Jude, the awful truth may be too horrifying to imagine.

About the Book

An unforgettable horror novel from bestselling sensation Ania Ahlborn --- hailed as a writer of “some of the most promising horror I’ve encountered in years” (New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire) --- in which a small-town boy investigates the mysterious disappearance of his cousin and uncovers a terrifying secret kept hidden for years.

Young Jude Brighton has been missing for three days, and while the search for him is in full swing in the small town of Deer Valley, Oregon, the locals are starting to lose hope. They’re well aware that the first 48 hours are critical and after that, the odds usually point to a worst-case scenario. And despite Stevie Clark’s youth, he knows that, too; he’s seen the cop shows. He knows what each ticking moment may mean for Jude, his cousin and best friend.

That, and there was that boy, Max Larsen...the one from years ago, found dead after also disappearing under mysterious circumstances. And then there were the animals: pets gone missing out of yards. For years, the residents of Deer Valley have murmured about these unsolved crimes…and that a killer may still be lurking around their quiet town. Now, fear is reborn --- and for Stevie, who is determined to find out what really happened to Jude, the awful truth may be too horrifying to imagine.

Audiobook available, read by Eric Michael Summerer

Editorial Content for The Nightwalker

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

THE NIGHTWALKER is the first of Sebastian Fitzek’s novels to be published in the United States, but he is already a household name in many other countries, including his native Germany, where he is the top-selling author of contemporary fiction. This is an impressive and unforgettable introduction (due in part to the efforts of translator Jaime Lee Searle) that demands to be read in one sitting and commands attention and reflection long thereafter. Read More

Teaser

As a young man, Leon Nader suffered from insomnia. As a sleepwalker, he even turned to violence during his nocturnal excursions and had psychiatric treatment for his condition. Eventually, he was convinced he had been cured --- but one day, years later, Leon's wife disappears from their apartment under mysterious circumstances. Could it be that his illness has broken out again? In order to find out how he behaves in his sleep, Leon fits a movement-activated camera to his forehead --- and when he looks at the video the next morning, he makes a discovery that bursts the borders of his imagination. His nocturnal personality goes through a door that is totally unknown to him and descends into the darkness.

Promo

As a young man, Leon Nader suffered from insomnia. As a sleepwalker, he even turned to violence during his nocturnal excursions and had psychiatric treatment for his condition. Eventually, he was convinced he had been cured --- but one day, years later, Leon's wife disappears from their apartment under mysterious circumstances. Could it be that his illness has broken out again? In order to find out how he behaves in his sleep, Leon fits a movement-activated camera to his forehead --- and when he looks at the video the next morning, he makes a discovery that bursts the borders of his imagination. His nocturnal personality goes through a door that is totally unknown to him and descends into the darkness.

About the Book

A psychological thrill-ride of a novel that finds an insomniac wondering if his nighttime excursions have turned into something beyond his imagination.

As a young man, Leon Nader suffered from insomnia. As a sleepwalker, he even turned to violence during his nocturnal excursions and had psychiatric treatment for his condition. Eventually, he was convinced he had been cured --- but one day, years later, Leon's wife disappears from their apartment under mysterious circumstances. Could it be that his illness has broken out again?

In order to find out how he behaves in his sleep, Leon fits a movement activated camera to his forehead --- and when he looks at the video the next morning he makes a discovery that bursts the borders of his imagination. His nocturnal personality goes through a door that is totally unknown to him and descends into the darkness.

Audiobook available, read by Robert Glenister

Editorial Content Ones and Zeroes (Mirador)

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rachel D., Teen Board Member

Take a minute to think about your day today. How many times did you check your phone? What about your laptop or tablet? What if I asked you how many of the things you did today required an internet connection? As our generation becomes fixated on new digital technologies, a future where technology is sovereign may not be as far-fetched as we’d like to believe to be. In Dan Wells’ second installment in his Mirador series, ONES AND ZEROES, he attacks this kind of future head on to reveal an actually plausible situation. Read More

Teaser

Overworld. It’s more than just the world’s most popular e-sport --- for thousands of VR teams around the globe, Overworld is life. It means fame and fortune, or maybe it’s a ticket out of obscurity or poverty. If you have a connection to the internet and four friends you trust with your life, anything is possible. Marisa Carneseca is on the hunt for a mysterious hacker named Grendel when she receives word that her amateur Overworld team has been invited to Forward Motion, one of the most exclusive tournaments of the year. 

Promo

Overworld. It’s more than just the world’s most popular e-sport --- for thousands of VR teams around the globe, Overworld is life. It means fame and fortune, or maybe it’s a ticket out of obscurity or poverty. If you have a connection to the internet and four friends you trust with your life, anything is possible. Marisa Carneseca is on the hunt for a mysterious hacker named Grendel when she receives word that her amateur Overworld team has been invited to Forward Motion, one of the most exclusive tournaments of the year. 

About the Book

From Dan Wells, author of the New York Times bestselling Partials Sequence and the John Cleaver series, comes the second book in a dark, pulse-pounding sci-fi-noir series set in 2050 Los Angeles.
 
Overworld. It’s more than just the world’s most popular e-sport --- for thousands of VR teams around the globe, Overworld is life. It means fame and fortune, or maybe it’s a ticket out of obscurity or poverty. If you have a connection to the internet and four friends you trust with your life, anything is possible.
 
Marisa Carneseca is on the hunt for a mysterious hacker named Grendel when she receives word that her amateur Overworld team has been invited to Forward Motion, one of the most exclusive tournaments of the year. For Marisa, this could mean anything --- a chance to finally go pro and to help her family, stuck in an LA neighborhood on the wrong side of the growing divide between the rich and the poor. But Forward Motion turns out to be more than it seems --- rife with corruption, infighting, and danger --- and Marisa runs headlong into Alain Bensoussan, a beautiful, dangerous underground freedom fighter who reveals to her the darker side of the forces behind the tournament. It soon becomes clear that, in this game, winning might be the only way to get out alive.

Nonfiction Picture Books (300x250 KRC 4)