Editorial Content for The Bright Years
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
While THE BRIGHT YEARS has subject matter that on the surface might seem grim --- death, loss, addiction --- debut novelist Sarah Damoff creates an uplifting story about people who choose to love in spite of failings, problems, or what might seem to be insurmountable issues. Ultimately, this book is filled with hope and a promise that the human soul is capable of unlimited love. Read More
Teaser
Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall. When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide if she can open up to love for them --- or herself --- while there’s still time.
Promo
Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall. When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide if she can open up to love for them --- or herself --- while there’s still time.
About the Book
One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they’re unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this big-hearted family saga perfect for readers of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo.
Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall.
When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide if she can open up to love for them --- or herself --- while there’s still time.
Told from three intimate points of view, THE BRIGHT YEARS is a tender, true-to-life novel that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.
Audiobook available; read by Ferdelle Capistrano, Joy Osmanski and Lee Osorio
Editorial Content for The Pretender
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
When it come to historical eras in fiction, few get a better showing than the Tudor period. Depending on your taste, you can lose yourself in a regal romance (Philippa Gregory), a historical mystery (C.J. Samson’s Shardlake series), quirky, alternate historical fantasy (MY LADY JANE), or dense tales of ambition and intrigue (Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy), to name just a few. But none is quite like THE PRETENDER, Jo Harkin’s sad and funny tale of Lambert Simnel, a young boy who may have been the heir to the Tudor throne. Read More
Teaser
In 1480, the arrival of a well-dressed stranger from London upends John Collan’s life forever. John is not John Collan, the son of Will Collan, but Lambert Simnel, the son of the long-deceased Duke of Clarence. Lambert has been hidden in the countryside after a brotherly rift over the crown --- and because Richard III has a habit of making his nephews disappear. He is removed from his humble origins and sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne’s rightful heir. There he encounters the intractable Joan, the delightfully strong-willed daughter of his Irish patrons, who is imbued with both extraordinary political savvy and occasional murderous tendencies. Together Lambert and Joan form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.
Promo
In 1480, the arrival of a well-dressed stranger from London upends John Collan’s life forever. John is not John Collan, the son of Will Collan, but Lambert Simnel, the son of the long-deceased Duke of Clarence. Lambert has been hidden in the countryside after a brotherly rift over the crown --- and because Richard III has a habit of making his nephews disappear. He is removed from his humble origins and sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne’s rightful heir. There he encounters the intractable Joan, the delightfully strong-willed daughter of his Irish patrons, who is imbued with both extraordinary political savvy and occasional murderous tendencies. Together Lambert and Joan form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.
About the Book
Set in the tumultuous period of the Tudors' ascent, THE PRETENDER brings to life the little-known story of Lambert Simnel.
From humble beginnings as a peasant boy, Lambert's life takes an astonishing turn when, at just 10 years old, he becomes a claimant to the English throne as one of the last of the Plantagenet line. As Lambert navigates the treacherous waters of royal intrigue and court life, complex themes of identity, power and destiny unfold, weaving a tapestry of ambition and survival in a world where the stakes couldn't be higher.
In 1480, John Collan’s greatest anxiety is how to circumvent the village’s devil goat on his way to collect water. But the arrival of a well-dressed stranger from London upends his life forever: John is not John Collan, not the son of Will Collan but Lambert Simnel, the son of the long-deceased Duke of Clarence, and has been hidden in the countryside after a brotherly rift over the crown --- and because Richard III has a habit of disappearing his nephews.
Removed from his humble origins and sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne’s rightful heir, Lambert is put into play by his masters. He learns the rules of etiquette in Burgundy and the machinations of the court in Ireland, where he encounters the intractable Joan, the delightfully strong-willed and manipulative daughter of his Irish patrons, a girl imbued with both extraordinary political savvy and occasional murderous tendencies. Joan has two paths available to her --- marry or become a nun. Lambert’s choices are similarly stark: he will either become king or die in battle. Together they form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.
Inspired by a footnote to history --- the true story of the little-known Simnel, who was a figurehead of the 1487 Yorkist rebellion and ended up working as a spy in the court of King Henry VII --- THE PRETENDER is historical fiction at its finest, a gripping, exuberant, rollicking portrait of British monarchy and life within the court, with a cast of unforgettable heroes and villains drawn from fifteenth-century England. A masterful new work from a major new author.
Audiobook available, read by John Hollingworth
Editorial Content for When the Wolf Comes Home
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
In the opening to WHEN THE WOLF COMES HOME, Nat Cassidy shows off his performing skills and cagey sense of humor by discussing his feelings about “content warnings” prior to the start of a book. He describes the subject matter of this novel as being “specifically about the slippery nature of fear and how important it is to find healthy ways to live with it.” Read More
Teaser
One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy's father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives. As they attempt to evade the boy's increasingly desperate father, Jess slowly comes to a horrifying understanding of the butchery that follows them --- the boy can turn his every fear into reality. And when the wolf finally comes home, no one will be spared.
Promo
One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy's father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives. As they attempt to evade the boy's increasingly desperate father, Jess slowly comes to a horrifying understanding of the butchery that follows them --- the boy can turn his every fear into reality. And when the wolf finally comes home, no one will be spared.
About the Book
Nat Cassidy, author of the acclaimed horror MARY, returns with WHEN THE WOLF COMES HOME, an unabashed, adrenaline-fueled pop horror thriller where the darkest fears can become reality.
One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy's father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.
As they attempt to evade the boy's increasingly desperate father, Jess slowly comes to a horrifying understanding of the butchery that follows them --- the boy can turn his every fear into reality.
And when the wolf finally comes home, no one will be spared.
Audiobook available, read by Helen Laser
Editorial Content for Fair Play
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
On the surface, Louise Hegarty’s debut plays out like a classic murder mystery that pays deep homage to similar novels from the early 20th century. But beneath the surface, something completely different is happening. Hegarty knows that to make an impact in this genre, her story will need to be unique, and FAIR PLAY certainly delivers on that front. Read More
Teaser
A group of friends gather at an Airbnb on New Year’s Eve. It is Benjamin’s birthday, and his sister, Abigail, is throwing him a jazz-age Murder Mystery-themed party. As the night plays out, champagne is drunk, hors d’oeuvres consumed and relationships forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses the wrong person; someone else’s heart is broken. In the morning, all of them wake up --- except Benjamin. As Abigail attempts to wrap her mind around her brother’s death, an eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer. In this mansion, suddenly complete with a butler, gardener and housekeeper, everyone is a suspect, and nothing is quite as it seems. Will the culprit be revealed? And how can Abigail piece herself back together in the wake of this loss?
Promo
A group of friends gather at an Airbnb on New Year’s Eve. It is Benjamin’s birthday, and his sister, Abigail, is throwing him a jazz-age Murder Mystery-themed party. As the night plays out, champagne is drunk, hors d’oeuvres consumed and relationships forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses the wrong person; someone else’s heart is broken. In the morning, all of them wake up --- except Benjamin. As Abigail attempts to wrap her mind around her brother’s death, an eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer. In this mansion, suddenly complete with a butler, gardener and housekeeper, everyone is a suspect, and nothing is quite as it seems. Will the culprit be revealed? And how can Abigail piece herself back together in the wake of this loss?
About the Book
For fans of Anthony Horowitz and Lucy Foley, a wonderfully original, genre-breaking literary debut from Ireland that’s an homage to the brilliant detective novels of the early 20th century, a twisty modern murder mystery, and a searing exploration of grief and loss.
A group of friends gather at an Airbnb on New Year’s Eve. It is Benjamin’s birthday, and his sister, Abigail, is throwing him a jazz-age Murder Mystery-themed party. As the night plays out, champagne is drunk, hors d’oeuvres consumed and relationships forged, consolidated or frayed. Someone kisses the wrong person; someone else’s heart is broken.
In the morning, all of them wake up --- except Benjamin.
As Abigail attempts to wrap her mind around her brother’s death, an eminent detective arrives determined to find Benjamin's killer. In this mansion, suddenly complete with a butler, gardener and housekeeper, everyone is a suspect and nothing is quite as it seems.
Will the culprit be revealed? And how can Abigail, now alone, piece herself back together in the wake of this loss?
Gripping and playful, sharp and profoundly moving, FAIR PLAY plumbs the depths of the human heart while subverting one of our most popular genres.
Audiobook available, read by Andrew Wincott and Aoife McMahon
Editorial Content for The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
At one point in their lives, they had served as each other’s liberators, and together they would liberate the consciousness of countless people during the turbulent 1960s. Rosemary Woodruff was familiar with the mystical as she watched her father perform tricks in front of wonderstruck audiences in the Midwest. A supernatural experience Rosemary had in her youth was impactful enough in her mind that she desired to replicate it. However, her fateful meeting with Dr. Timothy Leary was decades away. Read More
Teaser
Rosemary Woodruff Leary has been known only as the wife of Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor-turned-psychedelic high priest, whose jailbreak captivated the counterculture and whose life on the run with Rosemary inflamed the government. But Rosemary was more than a mere accessory. She was a beatnik, a psychonaut, and a true believer who tested the limits of her mind and the expectations for women of her time. Long overlooked by those who have venerated her husband, Rosemary spent her life on the forefront of the counterculture, working with Leary on his books and speeches, sewing his clothing, and shaping the media’s narrative about LSD. Ultimately, Rosemary sacrificed everything for the safety of her fellow psychedelic pioneers and the preservation of her husband’s legacy.
Promo
Rosemary Woodruff Leary has been known only as the wife of Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor-turned-psychedelic high priest, whose jailbreak captivated the counterculture and whose life on the run with Rosemary inflamed the government. But Rosemary was more than a mere accessory. She was a beatnik, a psychonaut, and a true believer who tested the limits of her mind and the expectations for women of her time. Long overlooked by those who have venerated her husband, Rosemary spent her life on the forefront of the counterculture, working with Leary on his books and speeches, sewing his clothing, and shaping the media’s narrative about LSD. Ultimately, Rosemary sacrificed everything for the safety of her fellow psychedelic pioneers and the preservation of her husband’s legacy.
About the Book
The untold story of the woman who played a critical role in bringing psychedelics into the mainstream --- until her audacious exploits forced her into the shadows --- from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of BRAIN ON FIRE.
Rosemary Woodruff Leary has been known only as the wife of Timothy Leary, the Harvard professor-turned-psychedelic high priest, whose jailbreak captivated the counterculture and whose life on the run with Rosemary inflamed the government. But Rosemary was more than a mere accessory. She was a beatnik, a psychonaut, and a true believer who tested the limits of her mind and the expectations for women of her time.
Long overlooked by those who have venerated her husband, Rosemary spent her life on the forefront of the counterculture, working with Leary on his books and speeches, sewing his clothing, and shaping --- for better and for worse --- the media’s narrative about LSD. Ultimately, Rosemary sacrificed everything for the safety of her fellow psychedelic pioneers and the preservation of her husband’s legacy.
Drawing from a wealth of interviews, diaries, archives and unpublished sources, Susannah Cahalan writes the definitive portrait of Rosemary Woodruff Leary, reclaiming her narrative and her voice from those who dismissed her. Page-turning, revelatory and utterly compelling, THE ACID QUEEN shines an overdue spotlight on a pioneering psychedelic seeker.
Audiobook available, read by Susannah Cahalan
Editorial Content for Eat the Ones You Love
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
If the classic film and musical Little Shop of Horrors was turned into a literary horror novel, you would have just a fraction of what has sprung from the brilliantly fertile mind of Sarah Maria Griffin in EAT THE ONES YOU LOVE. Read More
Teaser
After losing her job and her fiancé, and moving back from the city to live with her parents, Shell Pine needs some help. And according to the sign in the window, the florist shop in the mall does too. Shell gets the gig, and the flowers she works with are just the thing she needs to cheer up. Or maybe it’s Neve, the beautiful shop manager, who is making her days so rosy. But you have to get your hands dirty if you want your garden to grow --- and Neve’s secrets are as dark and dangerous as they come. In the back room of the flower shop, a young sentient orchid actually runs the show. He is hungry...and he has a plan for them all.
Promo
After losing her job and her fiancé, and moving back from the city to live with her parents, Shell Pine needs some help. And according to the sign in the window, the florist shop in the mall does too. Shell gets the gig, and the flowers she works with are just the thing she needs to cheer up. Or maybe it’s Neve, the beautiful shop manager, who is making her days so rosy. But you have to get your hands dirty if you want your garden to grow --- and Neve’s secrets are as dark and dangerous as they come. In the back room of the flower shop, a young sentient orchid actually runs the show. He is hungry...and he has a plan for them all.
About the Book
“Do you mind me asking --- what kind of help do you need?”
After losing her job and her fiancé, and moving back from the city to live with her parents, Shell Pine needs some help. And according to the sign in the window, the florist shop in the mall does too. Shell gets the gig, and the flowers she works with are just the thing she needs to cheer up. Or maybe it’s Neve, the beautiful shop manager, who is making her days so rosy.
But you have to get your hands dirty if you want your garden to grow --- and Neve’s secrets are as dark and dangerous as they come. In the back room of the flower shop, a young sentient orchid actually runs the show. He is hungry...and he has a plan for them all.
When the choices are to either bury yourself in the warmth of someone else’s fertile soil, or face the cold and disappointing world outside, which would you choose? And what if putting down roots came at a cost far higher than just your freedom?
This is a story about desire, dreams, decay --- and working retail at the end of the world.
Audiobook available, read by Barry McStay and Lauren O’Leary
Editorial Content for Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
The author of six previous books centered on early Blues music and/or the music scene in Memphis, Preston Lauterbach seems uniquely qualified to take on the important subject of crediting the many musical influences that shaped the world into which Elvis Presley strode in the 1950s. Read More
Teaser
After Baz Luhrmann’s movie, Elvis, hit theaters, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley’s music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In BEFORE ELVIS, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them. Within these pages, Lauterbach examines the lives, music, legacies and interactions with Elvis of the four innovative Black artists who created a style that would come to be known as Rock ’n’ Roll: Little Junior Parker, Big Mama Thornton, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, and mostly unknown eccentric Beale Street guitarist Calvin Newborn.
Promo
After Baz Luhrmann’s movie, Elvis, hit theaters, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley’s music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In BEFORE ELVIS, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them. Within these pages, Lauterbach examines the lives, music, legacies and interactions with Elvis of the four innovative Black artists who created a style that would come to be known as Rock ’n’ Roll: Little Junior Parker, Big Mama Thornton, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, and mostly unknown eccentric Beale Street guitarist Calvin Newborn.
About the Book
In this thought-provoking book, the Black musicians who influenced Elvis Presley's music finally receive recognition and praise.
After Baz Luhrmann’s movie, Elvis, hit theaters, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley’s music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In BEFORE ELVIS: The African American Musicians Who Made the King, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them.
Within these pages, Lauterbach examines the lives, music, legacies and interactions with Elvis of the four innovative Black artists who created a style that would come to be known as Rock ’n’ Roll: Little Junior Parker, Big Mama Thornton, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, and mostly unknown eccentric Beale Street guitarist Calvin Newborn. Along the way, he delves into the injustices of copyright theft and media segregation that resulted in Black artists living in poverty as white performers, managers and producers reaped the lucrative rewards.
In the wake of continuing conversations about American music and appropriation, BEFORE ELVIS is indispensable.
Audiobook available, read by Jaime Lincoln Smith
Which of the following fiction titles releasing in May do you plan to read? Please check all that apply.
April 25, 2025, 671 voters