Editorial Content for The Wife App
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Most women reading THE WIFE APP will agree with Carolyn Mackler's position that in any heterosexual marriage, it's the female --- the wife --- who ends up with most of the duties when it comes to running a house and a family. In fact, I find myself a bit disgruntled as I go about my daily routine, much of which is detailed in this perspicacious novel. There is a lot that I do, that most women do, that is taken for granted. Read More
Teaser
Lauren, the mother of twins, stumbles on a dirty secret that explodes her marriage. When Madeline learns that she might lose her child to her ex in England, it stirs up a decades-old personal tragedy. Sophie obsesses over her ex-husband’s Family 2.0 --- all while keeping her true desires hidden, even from herself. It starts as a joke during a tipsy night out, as Lauren, Madeline and Sophie rail against everything wives do for free. Let’s build an app that monetizes the mental load. And maybe get revenge on our exes in the process? Soon the Wife App is born, and before long, it’s the fastest growing start-up in New York City. But then life intervenes. Love intervenes. Ex-husbands intervene. And the consequences are bigger than anything Lauren, Madeline or Sophie could have expected.
Promo
Lauren, the mother of twins, stumbles on a dirty secret that explodes her marriage. When Madeline learns that she might lose her child to her ex in England, it stirs up a decades-old personal tragedy. Sophie obsesses over her ex-husband’s Family 2.0 --- all while keeping her true desires hidden, even from herself. It starts as a joke during a tipsy night out, as Lauren, Madeline and Sophie rail against everything wives do for free. Let’s build an app that monetizes the mental load. And maybe get revenge on our exes in the process? Soon the Wife App is born, and before long, it’s the fastest growing start-up in New York City. But then life intervenes. Love intervenes. Ex-husbands intervene. And the consequences are bigger than anything Lauren, Madeline or Sophie could have expected.
About the Book
Because every wife deserves a happy ending.
Three best friends decide they’re finally done with their ex-husbands taking their work as wives and moms for granted. They’re ready to monetize the mental load, stick it to their exes and have a wild ride in the process in this novel that is “fresh, funny, empowering, and totally satisfying” (Judy Blume).
Lauren, mother of twins, wakes up one morning to her Wife Alarm Bells sounding. She sleuths on her husband’s phone and stumbles on a dirty secret that explodes her marriage. Madeline has it all --- a penthouse apartment, a perfect daughter and no-strings-attached romps with handsome men. When she learns that she might lose her child to her ex in England, it stirs up a decades-old personal tragedy. Sophie, with too much FOMO and never enough money, obsesses over her ex-husband’s Family 2.0 --- all while keeping her true desires hidden, even from herself.
It starts as a joke during a tipsy night out, as Lauren, Madeline and Sophie rail against everything wives do for free. Let’s build an app that monetizes the mental load. And maybe get revenge on our exes in the process? Soon, the Wife App is born, and before long, it’s the fastest growing start-up in New York City. But then life intervenes. Love intervenes. Ex-husbands intervene. And the consequences are bigger than anything Lauren, Madeline or Sophie could have expected.
Carolyn Mackler marks her debut into adult fiction with a hilarious rollercoaster ride of revenge and redemption that is at once a send-up of modern marriage and a celebration of female friendship and love in all forms.
Audiobook available; read by Jennifer Jill Araya, Joy Osmanski and Allyson Ryan
Editorial Content for The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
The back cover of THE ART THIEF announces that its subject, Stéphane Breitwieser, “is the most prolific art thief of all time.” He stole almost $2 billion worth of art from regional museums in Western Europe, but --- happily --- the story inside makes those boasts seem less compelling than the how and why of this “gentleman” art thief’s obsession. Read More
Teaser
For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly eight years --- in museums and cathedrals all over Europe --- Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. In THE ART THIEF, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, Breitwieser never stole for money. Instead, he displayed all his treasures in a pair of secret rooms where he could admire them to his heart’s content.
Promo
For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly eight years --- in museums and cathedrals all over Europe --- Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. In THE ART THIEF, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, Breitwieser never stole for money. Instead, he displayed all his treasures in a pair of secret rooms where he could admire them to his heart’s content.
About the Book
In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, the bestselling author of THE STRANGER IN THE WOODS brings us into Stéphane Breitwieser’s strange world. Unlike most thieves, he never stole for money, keeping all his treasures in a single room where he could admire them.
For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly eight years --- in museums and cathedrals all over Europe --- Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.
In THE ART THIEF, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, Breitwieser never stole for money. Instead, he displayed all his treasures in a pair of secret rooms where he could admire them to his heart’s content. Possessed of a remarkable athleticism and an innate ability to circumvent practically any security system, Breitwieser managed to pull off a breathtaking number of audacious thefts. Yet these strange talents bred a growing disregard for risk and an addict’s need to score, leading Breitwieser to ignore his girlfriend’s pleas to stop --- until one final act of hubris brought everything crashing down.
This is a riveting story of art, crime, love and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.
Audiobook available, read by Edoardo Ballerini
Editorial Content for The Rachel Incident
Book
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Reviewer (text)
Updating the romantic comedy --- a genre in which wit surpasses sentiment --- is an enterprise that Jane Austen herself might have admired. Not that THE RACHEL INCIDENT is one of those Austen retellings (thank goodness). It is an original: madly clever, understatedly charming, and, though Irish, blessedly free of blarney. Read More
Teaser
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate, and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife.
Promo
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate, and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them. When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife.
About the Book
A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three.
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate, and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.
When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife.
Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, THE RACHEL INCIDENT is a triumph.
Audiobook available, read by Tara Flynn
Editorial Content for Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Forever Changed British History
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Both Anne Boleyn and Queen Elizabeth I have received massive literary, scholarly, artistic and visual attention as separate historical figures, and deservedly so. But surprisingly little has reached popular readership about their complex mother-daughter relationship. Tracy Borman’s ANNE BOLEYN & ELIZABETH I offers a fascinating corrective to the historical limbo into which this crucial connection had fallen. Read More
Teaser
The future Queen Elizabeth was not yet three when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded on May 19, 1536, on Henry’s order, incensed that she had not given him a son and tired of her contentious nature. Elizabeth had been raised away from court, rarely even seeing Anne. After her death, Henry tried in every way to erase Anne’s presence and memory. At that moment in history, few could have predicted that mother and daughter would each leave enduring, and interlocked, legacies. Yet as Tracy Borman reveals in this first-ever joint portrait, both women broke the mold for British queens and for women in general at the time.
Promo
The future Queen Elizabeth was not yet three when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded on May 19, 1536, on Henry’s order, incensed that she had not given him a son and tired of her contentious nature. Elizabeth had been raised away from court, rarely even seeing Anne. After her death, Henry tried in every way to erase Anne’s presence and memory. At that moment in history, few could have predicted that mother and daughter would each leave enduring, and interlocked, legacies. Yet as Tracy Borman reveals in this first-ever joint portrait, both women broke the mold for British queens and for women in general at the time.
About the Book
Anne Boleyn may be best known for losing her head, but as Tudor expert Tracy Borman reveals in a book that recasts British history, her greatest legacy lies in the path-breaking reign of her daughter, Elizabeth.
Much of the fascination with Britain’s legendary Tudors centers around the dramas surrounding Henry VIII and his six wives and Elizabeth I’s rumored liaisons. Yet the most fascinating relationship in that historic era may well be that between the mother and daughter who, individually and collectively, changed the course of British history.
The future Queen Elizabeth was not yet three when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded on May 19, 1536, on Henry’s order, incensed that she had not given him a son and tired of her contentious nature. Elizabeth had been raised away from court, rarely even seeing Anne. After her death, Henry tried in every way to erase Anne’s presence and memory. At that moment in history, few could have predicted that mother and daughter would each leave enduring, and interlocked, legacies.
Yet as Tracy Borman reveals in this first-ever joint portrait, both women broke the mold for British queens and for women in general at the time. Anne was instrumental in reforming and reshaping forever Britain’s religious traditions, and her years of wielding power over a male-dominated court provided an inspiring role model for Elizabeth’s glittering, groundbreaking 45-year reign. Indeed, Borman shows how much Elizabeth --- most visibly by refusing to ever marry, but in many other more subtle ways that defined her court --- was influenced by her mother’s legacy.
In its originality, ANNE BOLEYN & ELIZABETH I sheds new light on two of history’s most famous women --- the private desires, hopes and fears that lay behind their dazzling public personas, and the surprising influence each had on the other during and after their lifetimes. In the process, Tracy Borman reframes our understanding of the entire Tudor era.
Audiobook available, read by Tracy Borman
Editorial Content for Have You Seen Her
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
A woman fleeing a bad marriage takes refuge in Yosemite National Park. But trouble follows her into the wilderness in Catherine McKenzie’s latest novel, HAVE YOU SEEN HER. Read More
Teaser
Cassie Peters has left her hectic and secretive life in New York City for the refuge of her hometown of Mammoth Lakes, California. There, she begins working again with Yosemite Search and Rescue, where a case she worked a decade ago continues to haunt her. She joins a group of fellow seasonal workers and young adventurers who have made Yosemite their home during the summer. There, she meets Petal, a young woman living in a trailer with her much older wife, keeping a detailed diary of the goings-on of the park, and Jada, a recent college graduate on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, documenting their journey on Instagram. When these three women cross paths, Cassie’s past catches up with her, and the shocking consequences ripple out far beyond what any could have imagined.
Promo
Cassie Peters has left her hectic and secretive life in New York City for the refuge of her hometown of Mammoth Lakes, California. There, she begins working again with Yosemite Search and Rescue, where a case she worked a decade ago continues to haunt her. She joins a group of fellow seasonal workers and young adventurers who have made Yosemite their home during the summer. There, she meets Petal, a young woman living in a trailer with her much older wife, keeping a detailed diary of the goings-on of the park, and Jada, a recent college graduate on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, documenting their journey on Instagram. When these three women cross paths, Cassie’s past catches up with her, and the shocking consequences ripple out far beyond what any could have imagined.
About the Book
An “edge-of-your-seat” (Jessa Maxwell, author of THE GOLDEN SPOON) thriller about three women with dark secrets whose lives intersect in the picturesque and perilous Yosemite National Park from the USA Today bestselling author of PLEASE JOIN US.
Equipped with a burner phone and a new job, Cassie Peters has left her hectic and secretive life in New York City for the refuge of her hometown of Mammoth Lakes, California. There, she begins working again with Yosemite Search and Rescue, where a case she worked a decade ago continues to haunt her.
She quickly falls into old patterns, joining a group of fellow seasonal workers and young adventurers who have made Yosemite their home during the summer. There, she meets Petal, a young woman living in a trailer with her much older wife, keeping a detailed diary of the goings-on of the park, and Jada, a recent college graduate on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend, documenting their journey on Instagram.
When these three women cross paths, Cassie’s past catches up with her, and the shocking consequences ripple out far beyond what any could have imagined.
Audiobook available; read by Amanda Dolan, Stacy Gonzalez, Tyla Collier, Machelle Williams and Ali Andre Ali
Editorial Content for The First Death
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Rowan Wolff and her dog, Thor, are well known in Deschutes County, Oregon, as miracle workers when it comes to tracking scents. For Rowan, there is good reason she does this. At five years old, she and her brother, Malcolm, were abducted and held in horrific conditions, tortured and abused. But only after their babysitter was murdered. Rowan somehow managed to escape, but Malcolm didn’t make it. His remains were never found. Read More
Teaser
Rowan Wolff was five years old when she, her brother and their babysitter were kidnapped by a serial killer. The babysitter was murdered. Rowan was saved. Her brother was killed and buried in the forest. The convicted killer refuses to say where he buried the boy. Twenty-five years later, Rowan is obsessed with finding her brother’s grave --- and closure. Detective Evan Bolton’s latest case is disturbing. There’s another serial killer hunting in Deschutes County, Oregon, and the crimes are identical to those committed by the sociopath languishing in prison. Each victim is linked to Rowan. When skeletal remains of several bodies are exhumed in the forest, Rowan’s connection becomes more entwined and impossible to ignore.
Promo
Rowan Wolff was five years old when she, her brother and their babysitter were kidnapped by a serial killer. The babysitter was murdered. Rowan was saved. Her brother was killed and buried in the forest. The convicted killer refuses to say where he buried the boy. Twenty-five years later, Rowan is obsessed with finding her brother’s grave --- and closure. Detective Evan Bolton’s latest case is disturbing. There’s another serial killer hunting in Deschutes County, Oregon, and the crimes are identical to those committed by the sociopath languishing in prison. Each victim is linked to Rowan. When skeletal remains of several bodies are exhumed in the forest, Rowan’s connection becomes more entwined and impossible to ignore.
About the Book
For a search-and-rescue expert, the buried remains of her past are a dangerous obsession in a twisting novel of suspense by a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author.
Rowan Wolff was five years old when she, her brother and their babysitter were kidnapped by a serial killer in the Pacific Northwest. The babysitter was murdered. Rowan was saved. Her brother was killed and buried in the forest, his remains never found. The convicted killer refuses to say where he buried the boy. Twenty-five years later, Rowan is committed to search and rescue with her faithful canine and is obsessed with finding her brother’s grave --- and closure.
Detective Evan Bolton thrives on unraveling tough cases, but his latest is disturbing. There’s another serial killer hunting in Deschutes County, Oregon, and the crimes are identical to those committed by the sociopath languishing in prison. Each victim is linked to Rowan. When skeletal remains of several bodies are exhumed in the forest, Rowan’s connection becomes more entwined and impossible to ignore.
Rowan and Evan are determined to solve the case before someone else dies. And someone else will, as the truth about the past is unearthed.
Audiobook available, read by Teri Schnaubelt and Michael Crouch
Editorial Content for Sing Her Down
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
In a short period of time, Ivy Pochoda has earned a reputation as a writer of gritty, street-savvy novels frequently populated by complicated female characters. Her latest effort, SING HER DOWN, does not veer from this blueprint. It combines narratives set inside an Arizona women’s prison with the seedy streets of Los Angeles during the height of COVID. Read More
Teaser
Florence "Florida" Baum is not the hapless innocent she claims to be when she arrives at the Arizona women's prison --- or so her ex-cellmate, Diosmary Sandoval, keeps insinuating. Dios knows the truth about Florida's crimes, understands the truth that Florence hides even from herself: that she wasn't a victim of circumstance, an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that darkness lives in women too, despite the world's refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida's eyes and unleash her true self. When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios' fixation on Florida turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona to the desolate streets of Los Angeles.
Promo
Florence "Florida" Baum is not the hapless innocent she claims to be when she arrives at the Arizona women's prison --- or so her ex-cellmate, Diosmary Sandoval, keeps insinuating. Dios knows the truth about Florida's crimes, understands the truth that Florence hides even from herself: that she wasn't a victim of circumstance, an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that darkness lives in women too, despite the world's refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida's eyes and unleash her true self. When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios' fixation on Florida turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona to the desolate streets of Los Angeles.
About the Book
Cormac McCarthy meets "Killing Eve" in this gritty, razor-sharp thriller following two indelible women on a path to certain destruction.
Florence "Florida" Baum is not the hapless innocent she claims to be when she arrives at the Arizona women's prison --- or so her ex-cellmate, Diosmary Sandoval, keeps insinuating.
Dios knows the truth about Florida's crimes, understands the truth that Florence hides even from herself: that she wasn't a victim of circumstance, an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that darkness lives in women too, despite the world's refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida's eyes and unleash her true self.
When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios's fixation on Florida turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona to the desolate streets of Los Angeles.
With blistering, incisive prose, the award-winning author Ivy Pochoda delivers a razor-sharp Western. Gripping and immersive, SING HER DOWN is a spellbinding thriller setting two indelible women on a path to certain destruction and an epic, stunning showdown.
Audiobook available; read by Frankie Corzo, Kimberly M. Wetherell, Sophie Amoss and Victoria Villarreal
Editorial Content for The Battle of Maldon: Together with the Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
J. R. R. Tolkien is, quite rightly, labeled as the grandfather of modern fantasy. A preeminent linguist of his time, he steeped his imagination in worldly epics, legends and poems from ages past. Read More
Teaser
In 991 AD, Vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defense-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of 10th-century England, due to it being immortalized in the poem “The Battle of Maldon.” Written shortly after the battle, the poem would inspire J.R.R. Tolkien to compose his own dramatic verse-dialogue, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” which imagines the aftermath of the great battle. Leading Tolkien scholar Peter Grybauskas presents for the very first time Tolkien’s own prose translation of “The Battle of Maldon,” together with the definitive treatment of “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth” and its accompanying essays.
Promo
In 991 AD, Vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defense-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of 10th-century England, due to it being immortalized in the poem “The Battle of Maldon.” Written shortly after the battle, the poem would inspire J.R.R. Tolkien to compose his own dramatic verse-dialogue, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” which imagines the aftermath of the great battle. Leading Tolkien scholar Peter Grybauskas presents for the very first time Tolkien’s own prose translation of “The Battle of Maldon,” together with the definitive treatment of “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth” and its accompanying essays.
About the Book
The first-ever stand-alone edition of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s most important poetic dramas, that explores timely themes such as the nature of heroism and chivalry during war, featuring previously unpublished and never-before-seen texts and drafts.
In 991 AD, Vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defense-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of 10th-century England, due to it being immortalized in the poem “The Battle of Maldon.”
Written shortly after the battle, the poem now survives only as a 325-line fragment, but its value to today is incalculable, not just as a heroic tale but in vividly expressing the lost language of our ancestors and celebrating ideals of loyalty and friendship.
J.R.R. Tolkien considered “The Battle of Maldon” “the last surviving fragment of ancient English heroic minstrelsy.” It would inspire him to compose, during the 1930s, his own dramatic verse-dialogue, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” which imagines the aftermath of the great battle when two of Beorhtnoth’s retainers come to retrieve their duke’s body.
Leading Tolkien scholar Peter Grybauskas presents for the very first time Tolkien’s own prose translation of “The Battle of Maldon,” together with the definitive treatment of “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth” and its accompanying essays. Also included and never before published is Tolkien’s bravura lecture, “The Tradition of Versification in Old English,” a wide-ranging essay on the nature of poetic tradition. Illuminated with insightful notes and commentary, he has produced a definitive critical edition of these works and argues compellingly that, Beowulf excepted, “The Battle of Maldon” may well have been “the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien’s fiction,” most dramatically within the pages of THE LORD OF THE RINGS.