Editorial Content for The Assistants
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Reviewer (text)
From sharp and funny newcomer Camille Perri comes THE ASSISTANTS, a Robin Hood-esque novel about two bright young women who accidentally begin a movement. Told in first person, this engaging, witty book will delight millennials and twentysomethings alike while enticing readers of all ages. Read More
Teaser
Tina Fontana is a 30-year-old executive assistant to Robert Barlow, the CEO of Titan Corp. But after six years, the glamour of working for a media company in New York has completely faded, though her student loan debt has not. When a technical error with Robert’s expense report presents Tina with the opportunity to pay off the entire balance of her loans with what essentially would be pocket change for her boss, she hesitates. As she begins to fall down the rabbit hole of her morally questionable plan, other assistants with crushing debt and fewer scruples approach her to say that they want in. Before she knows it, Tina is at the forefront of a movement that has implications far beyond what anyone anticipated.
Promo
Tina Fontana is a 30-year-old executive assistant to Robert Barlow, the CEO of Titan Corp. But after six years, the glamour of working for a media company in New York has completely faded, though her student loan debt has not. When a technical error with Robert’s expense report presents Tina with the opportunity to pay off the entire balance of her loans with what essentially would be pocket change for her boss, she hesitates. As she begins to fall down the rabbit hole of her morally questionable plan, other assistants with crushing debt and fewer scruples approach her to say that they want in. Before she knows it, Tina is at the forefront of a movement that has implications far beyond what anyone anticipated.
About the Book
The debut novel that J. Courtney Sullivan calls “addictive, hilarious, and smart. It’s "9 to 5 for the student loan generation” and Publishers Weekly describes as “if the characters from HBO’s 'Girls' were capable of larceny and blackmail.”
Rule #1: All important men have assistants. Rule #2: Men rule the world. Still. Rule #3: There is enough money. There is so much money.
Tina Fontana is a 30-year-old executive assistant to Robert Barlow, the CEO of Titan Corp., a multinational media conglomerate. She’s excellent at her job and beloved by her famous boss --- but after six years of making reservations and pouring drinks from bottles that cost more than her rent, the glamour of working for a media company in New York has completely faded, but her student loan debt has not.
When a technical error with Robert’s expense report presents Tina with the opportunity to pay off the entire balance of her loans with what would essentially be pocket change for her boss, she hesitates. She’s always played by the rules, but this would be a life-changer. As Tina begins to fall down the rabbit hole of her morally questionable plan, other assistants with crushing debt and fewer scruples approach her to say that they want in. Before she knows it, she’s at the forefront of a movement that has implications far beyond what anyone anticipated.
Featuring an eclectic clan of coconspirators, a love interest far too handsome to be trusted, and a razor-sharp voice full of wry humor, THE ASSISTANTS is a rallying cry for the leagues of overeducated and underpaid women who are asking themselves, How is it that after all these years, we are still assistants?
Audiobook available, read by Jorjeana Marie
Editorial Content for Friendly Fire: A Jonathan Grave Thriller
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Reviewer (text)
Following AGAINST ALL ENEMIES (winner of the 2016 Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original Novel) and END GAME, John Gilstrap introduces his most complex work, an intriguing premise that potentially holds all of America hostage in a grip of terror. Read More
Teaser
Barista Ethan Falk chases a customer into the parking lot and kills him. He tells police that years ago the older man abducted and tortured him. Then Ethan's story takes an even stranger turn: he says he was rescued by a guy named Scorpion. Of course, there is no record of either the kidnapping or the rescue, because Scorpion --- Jonathan Grave --- operates outside the law and leaves no evidence. As Grave struggles to find a way to defend his former precious cargo without blowing his cover, he learns the dead man has secrets that trace to an ongoing terrorist plot against the heart of America.
Promo
Barista Ethan Falk chases a customer into the parking lot and kills him. He tells police that years ago the older man abducted and tortured him. Then Ethan's story takes an even stranger turn: he says he was rescued by a guy named Scorpion. Of course, there is no record of either the kidnapping or the rescue, because Scorpion --- Jonathan Grave --- operates outside the law and leaves no evidence. As Grave struggles to find a way to defend his former precious cargo without blowing his cover, he learns the dead man has secrets that trace to an ongoing terrorist plot against the heart of America.
About the Book
It begins with a shocking act of vengeance. Barista Ethan Falk chases a customer into the parking lot and kills him. He tells police that years ago the older man abducted and tortured him. Then Ethan's story takes an even stranger turn: he says he was rescued by a guy named Scorpion. Of course, there is no record of either the kidnapping or the rescue, because Scorpion --- Jonathan Grave --- operates outside the law and leaves no evidence.
As Grave struggles to find a way to defend his former precious cargo without blowing his cover, he learns the dead man has secrets that trace to an ongoing terrorist plot against the heart of America. It's up to Grave and his team to stop it. But first they must rescue Ethan Falk --- a second time.
Audiobook available, read by Basil Sands
Editorial Content for The Charmers
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Reviewer (text)
When Mirabella Matthews inherits a villa in the South of France from her beloved Aunt Jolly, it's a bittersweet gain. As much as she is eager to take possession of the famous Villa Romantica, a sprawling home perched high atop the hills overlooking the Mediterranean, she's even more intent to find out who murdered her chatty, elegant, septuagenarian aunt. Read More
Teaser
When Mirabella Matthews’ Aunt Jolly dies unexpectedly and under mysterious circumstances, Mirabella suddenly finds herself the new owner of a villa in the South of France. But with the inheritance come unexpected mysteries…and dangers. On her way to the villa, Mirabella is run off the road by a motorcycle, and that’s only just the beginning. It turns out that Aunt Jolly had a past, and as the various men who were a part of it show up, Mirabella must find out who can be trusted and who is using charm to mask the face of a murderer.
Promo
When Mirabella Matthews’ Aunt Jolly dies unexpectedly and under mysterious circumstances, Mirabella suddenly finds herself the new owner of a villa in the South of France. But with the inheritance come unexpected mysteries…and dangers. On her way to the villa, Mirabella is run off the road by a motorcycle, and that’s only just the beginning. It turns out that Aunt Jolly had a past, and as the various men who were a part of it show up, Mirabella must find out who can be trusted and who is using charm to mask the face of a murderer.
About the Book
When Mirabella Matthews’ Aunt Jolly dies unexpectedly and under mysterious circumstances Mirabella suddenly finds herself the new owner of a villa in the South of France. But with the inheritance come unexpected mysteries…and dangers.
On her way to the villa, Mirabella is run off the road by a motorcycle, and that’s only just the beginning. It turns out that Aunt Jolly had a past, and as the various men who were a part of it show up Mirabella must find out who can be trusted and who is using charm to mask the face of a murderer.
Told with Elizabeth Adler’s signature attention to detail, strong female characters and luxurious setting, THE CHARMERS is a page-turner of a novel that will keep you riveted up until the very last page.
Editorial Content for Burn What Will Burn
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Reviewer (text)
One of my favorite books of 2014 was a golden piece of border noir titled BAD COUNTRY. It was the debut novel of CB McKenzie, a dark and rich piece of work that still bounces through my head at regular intervals. I eagerly have been awaiting its successor, and now that BURN WHAT WILL BURN has been published, I can tell you that it was more than worth the wait, even as it moves in what initially seems to be a very different direction. Read More
Teaser
Bob Reynolds is a newcomer to town who isn’t entirely welcome or on good footing with the sheriff. But he has interests other than drinking and spending his inheritance, including one that goes by the name Tammy Fay Smith and who may have caught the sheriff's eye as well. Reynolds would rather pretend he never saw the body in the creek, but when it disappears, he begins to doubt what little he knew about this secretive town. Try as he might, he just can't forget the body, despite the advice he's given to do so, and despite the evidence to suggest that he might be disappearing himself soon enough.
Promo
Bob Reynolds is a newcomer to town who isn’t entirely welcome or on good footing with the sheriff. But he has interests other than drinking and spending his inheritance, including one that goes by the name Tammy Fay Smith and who may have caught the sheriff's eye as well. Reynolds would rather pretend he never saw the body in the creek, but when it disappears, he begins to doubt what little he knew about this secretive town. Try as he might, he just can't forget the body, despite the advice he's given to do so, and despite the evidence to suggest that he might be disappearing himself soon enough.
About the Book
Bob Reynolds doesn't recognize the body in the creek, but he does recognize the danger of it. He's a newcomer to town, not entirely welcome, and not entirely on good footing with the sheriff. So far he's kept his head down, mostly over the bar at the Crow's Nest. But he has interests other than drinking and spending his inheritance, including one that goes by the name Tammy Fay Smith and who may have caught the sheriff's eye as well.
Reynolds would rather pretend he never saw the body, but when it disappears, he begins to doubt what little he knew about this secretive town, a town that seems to become more unwelcoming by the day. Try as he might, he just can't forget the body, despite the advice he's been given to do so, and despite the evidence to suggest that he might be disappearing himself soon enough.
Following his acclaimed, award-winning debut, BURN WHAT WILL BURN confirms CB McKenzie as a one-of-a-kind crime novelist with an unforgettably original voice.
Audiobook available, read by Bon Shaw
Editorial Content for My Father and Atticus Finch: A Lawyer's Fight for Justice in 1930s Alabama
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Reviewer (text)
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD has been and remains one of the most revered novels of the 20th century. 2015 saw the release of a new Harper Lee book, GO SET A WATCHMAN, that was published to much hype, anticipation, disappointment and debate. It also marked the passing of the legendary author, whose life after the publication of MOCKINGBIRD was unique in many aspects. Avoiding the public literary limelight, she spent the majority of her life in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, with her sister, Alice. Read More
Teaser
As a child, Joseph Beck heard about his father’s legacy: Foster Beck had once been a respected trial lawyer who defied the unspoken code of 1930s Alabama by defending a black man charged with raping a white woman. Now a lawyer himself, Beck has become intrigued by the similarities between his father’s story and the one at the heart of Harper Lee’s iconic novel. This riveting memoir seeks to understand how race, class and the memory of the South’s defeat in the Civil War produced the trial’s outcome, and how these issues figure into our literary imagination.
Promo
As a child, Joseph Beck heard about his father’s legacy: Foster Beck had once been a respected trial lawyer who defied the unspoken code of 1930s Alabama by defending a black man charged with raping a white woman. Now a lawyer himself, Beck has become intrigued by the similarities between his father’s story and the one at the heart of Harper Lee’s iconic novel. This riveting memoir seeks to understand how race, class and the memory of the South’s defeat in the Civil War produced the trial’s outcome, and how these issues figure into our literary imagination.
About the Book
The story of Foster Beck, the author’s late father, whose defense of a black man accused of rape in 1930s Alabama foreshadowed the trial at the heart of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.
As a child, Joseph Beck heard the stories --- when other lawyers came up with excuses, his father courageously defended a black man charged with raping a white woman.
Now a lawyer himself, Beck reconstructs his father's role in State of Alabama vs. Charles White, Alias, a trial that was much publicized when Harper Lee was twelve years old.
On the day of Foster Beck’s client’s arrest, the leading local newspaper reported, under a page-one headline, that "a wandering negro fortune teller giving the name Charles White" had "volunteered a detailed confession of the attack" of a local white girl. However, Foster Beck concluded that the confession was coerced. The same article claimed that "the negro accomplished his dastardly purpose," but as in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, there was evidence at the trial to the contrary. Throughout the proceedings, the defendant had to be escorted from the courthouse to a distant prison “for safekeeping,” and the courthouse itself was surrounded by a detachment of sixteen Alabama highway patrolmen.
The saga captivated the community with its dramatic testimonies and emotional outcome. It would take an immense toll on those involved, including Foster Beck, who worried that his reputation had cast a shadow over his lively, intelligent and supportive fiancé, Bertha, who had her own social battles to fight.
This riveting memoir, steeped in time and place, seeks to understand how race relations, class and the memory of southern defeat in the Civil War produced such a haunting distortion of justice, and how it may figure into our literary imagination.
Editorial Content for Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick
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Reviewer (text)
“I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”
--- Ishmael, MOBY-DICK
This is the sense of adventure and worldly desire that fueled Herman Melville through his writing of MOBY-DICK in the winter of 1850. A longtime sailor, built stout and with a heavy beard, Melville had a borderline manic disposition --- the flights of fancy and outright gall that one needed to write such an epic novel. Overdone, enthralling and enormous in length, MOBY-DICK was Melville’s be-all and end-all. Read More
Teaser
Herman Melville’s epic novel, MOBY-DICK, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851. Because he was neglected by academics for so long and made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his “wicked book.” Scholars still puzzle over what drove him to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale. Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville’s affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained his own.
Promo
Herman Melville’s epic novel, MOBY-DICK, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851. Because he was neglected by academics for so long and made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his “wicked book.” Scholars still puzzle over what drove him to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale. Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville’s affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained his own.
About the Book
A new account of Herman Melville and the writing of MOBY-DICK, written by a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Biography and based on fresh archival research, which reveals that the anarchic spirit animating Melville’s canonical work was inspired by his great love affair with a shockingly unconventional married woman.
Herman Melville’s epic novel, MOBY-DICK, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author’s rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his “wicked book.” Scholars still puzzle over what drove Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.
In MELVILLE IN LOVE, Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville’s passionate, obsessive, and clandestine affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained Melville’s own. In his research, Shelden discovered unexplored documents suggesting that, in their shared resistance to the “iron rule” of social conformity, Sarah and Melville had forged an illicit and enduring romantic and intellectual bond. Emboldened by the thrill of courting Sarah in secret, the pleasure of falling in love, and the excitement of spending time with literary luminaries --- like Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Nathaniel Hawthorne --- Melville found the courage to take the leap from light works of adventure to the hugely brilliant, utterly subversive MOBY-DICK.
Filled with the rich detail and immense drama of Melville’s secret life, MELVILLE IN LOVE tells the gripping story of how one of our greatest novelists found his muse.
Editorial Content for The Lie
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Reviewer (text)
Jane Hughes' cozy existence --- with her wonderful boyfriend, delightful job at a local animal shelter, and perfect little house in Wales --- is jeopardized when she receives a note that reads: "I know your name's not really Jane Hughes." Jane Hughes is actually Emma Wolfe, who has been trying to distance herself from the past. But what happened five years earlier still haunts her. Read More
Teaser
Jane Hughes has a great boyfriend, a job in an animal shelter, and a tiny cottage in rural Wales. She's happier than she's ever been...but her life is a lie. Jane Hughes does not really exist. Five years earlier, Jane and her best friends set off on what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, but it rapidly descended into a nightmare that claimed the lives of two of her friends. Ever since, Jane has tried to put the past behind her and lead a normal life. But someone out there knows the truth about what happened --- and they won't stop until they've destroyed Jane and everything she loves.
Promo
Jane Hughes has a great boyfriend, a job in an animal shelter, and a tiny cottage in rural Wales. She's happier than she's ever been...but her life is a lie. Jane Hughes does not really exist. Five years earlier, Jane and her best friends set off on what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, but it rapidly descended into a nightmare that claimed the lives of two of her friends. Ever since, Jane has tried to put the past behind her and lead a normal life. But someone out there knows the truth about what happened --- and they won't stop until they've destroyed Jane and everything she loves.
About the Book
Haunting and compelling, this psychological thriller is perfect for fans of GONE GIRL, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN and THE DAUGHTER.
Jane Hughes has a great boyfriend, a job in an animal shelter, and a tiny cottage in rural Wales. She's happier than she's ever been...but her life is a lie. Jane Hughes does not really exist.
Five years earlier, Jane and her best friends set off on what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, but it rapidly descended into a nightmare that claimed the lives of two of her friends. Ever since, Jane has tried to put the past behind her and lead a normal life. But someone out there knows the truth about what happened-and they won't stop until they've destroyed Jane and everything she loves.
Audiobook available, narrated by Penny Rawlins
June 30, 2016
This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we think is a great summer reading selection. Read more about it, and enter our Summer Reading Contest by Friday, July 1st at 11:59am ET for a chance to win one of five copies of FIRST COMES LOVE by Emily Giffin, which is now available. Please note that each contest is only open for 24 hours, so you will need to act quickly!
Jhumpa LahiriThe first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. AttributionJhumpa Lahiri
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