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Editorial Content for Drunk on Love

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

Jasmine Guillory recently wrapped up the six-book series of interconnected romance novels that launched her career (starting with THE WEDDING DATE) after giving virtually all of her characters their very own happily ever after. Now, with DRUNK ON LOVE, Guillory is launching a new series with an intoxicating setting: the vineyards of California’s Napa Valley. Read More

Teaser

Margot Noble needs some relief from the stress of running the family winery with her brother. Enter Luke Williams: sexy, charming and, best of all in the too-small world of Napa, a stranger. The chemistry between them is undeniable, and Margot is delighted that she lucked into the perfect one-night stand she’ll never have to see again. That is, until the winery’s newest hire, Luke, walks in the next morning. Margot is determined to keep things purely professional, but when their every interaction reminds her of the attraction still bubbling between them, it proves to be much more challenging than she expects.

Promo

Margot Noble needs some relief from the stress of running the family winery with her brother. Enter Luke Williams: sexy, charming and, best of all in the too-small world of Napa, a stranger. The chemistry between them is undeniable, and Margot is delighted that she lucked into the perfect one-night stand she’ll never have to see again. That is, until the winery’s newest hire, Luke, walks in the next morning. Margot is determined to keep things purely professional, but when their every interaction reminds her of the attraction still bubbling between them, it proves to be much more challenging than she expects.

About the Book

An intoxicating and sparkling new romance by New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory.

Margot Noble needs some relief from the stress of running the family winery with her brother. Enter Luke: sexy, charming and, best of all in the too-small world of Napa, a stranger. The chemistry between them is undeniable, and Margot is delighted that she lucked into the perfect one-night stand she’ll never have to see again. That is, until the winery’s newest hire, Luke, walks in the next morning. Margot is determined to keep things purely professional, but when their every interaction reminds her of the attraction still bubbling between them, it proves to be much more challenging than she expects.

Luke Williams had it all, but when he quits his high-salary tech job in Silicon Valley in a blaze of burnout and moves back to Napa to help a friend, he realizes he doesn’t want to tell the world --- or his mom --- why he’s now working at a winery. His mom loves bragging about her successful son. How can he admit that the job she’s so proud of broke him? Luke has no idea what is next for him, but one thing is certain: he wants more from the incredibly smart and sexy woman he hooked up with --- even after he learns she’s his new boss. But even if they can find a way to be together that wouldn’t be an ethical nightmare, would such a successful woman really want a tech-world dropout?

Set against a lush backdrop of Napa Valley wine country, nothing goes to your head as fast as a taste of love --- even if it means changing all your plans.

Audiobook available, read by Heidi Franklin and Ryan Vincent Anderson

Editorial Content for Captive: An Eve Duncan Novel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Christine M. Irvin

While most of the books in Iris Johansen’s Eve Duncan series focus on the titular main character, CAPTIVE revolves around Eve’s daughter, Jane MacGuire, and her significant other, Seth Caleb. Eve is a relatively minor figure in this particular episode.

"This 29th entry in the series is told in Johansen’s distinctive style, with lots of action taking place in various locations and from different characters’ perspectives."

Teaser

Jane MacGuire is enjoying a period of domestic bliss as she focuses on her art, and her partner, Seth Caleb, uses his unique abilities as an agent for the MI6 intelligence service. But when Seth crosses crime lord Hugh Bohdan, he incurs the wrath of one of the world’s most powerful criminal empires, and Jane is soon on the run. With that peril, though, comes an astonishing discovery: a 200-year-old secret on the brink of becoming lost to history. Jane and Seth must join forces to unlock the fascinating puzzle, even as they hurtle toward a lethal final confrontation in the Highlands. But before their adventure is over, they will encounter their biggest shock of all…and realize nothing can be the same for them ever again.

Promo

Jane MacGuire is enjoying a period of domestic bliss as she focuses on her art, and her partner, Seth Caleb, uses his unique abilities as an agent for the MI6 intelligence service. But when Seth crosses crime lord Hugh Bohdan, he incurs the wrath of one of the world’s most powerful criminal empires, and Jane is soon on the run. With that peril, though, comes an astonishing discovery: a 200-year-old secret on the brink of becoming lost to history. Jane and Seth must join forces to unlock the fascinating puzzle, even as they hurtle toward a lethal final confrontation in the Highlands. But before their adventure is over, they will encounter their biggest shock of all…and realize nothing can be the same for them ever again.

About the Book

Eve Duncan’s daughter, Jane MacGuire, seems to have found a perfect life with Seth Caleb --- until a ruthless madman threatens to destroy it all in this gripping suspense novel from #1 bestselling author Iris Johansen.

Jane MacGuire is enjoying a period of domestic bliss as she focuses on her art and her partner, Seth Caleb, uses his unique abilities as an agent for the MI6 intelligence service. But when Seth crosses crime lord Hugh Bohdan, he incurs the wrath of one of the world’s most powerful criminal empires...one whose tentacles reach across the globe and even to the idyllic Scottish retreat where Jane is working.  

Soon Jane is on the run, struggling to stay one step ahead of Bohdan’s army and his devastating high-tech weaponry. Even with the assistance of Earl John MacDuff, she finds danger at every turn. But with that peril comes an astonishing discovery: a 200-year-old secret on the brink of becoming lost to history.

Jane and Seth must join forces to unlock the fascinating puzzle, even as they hurtle toward a lethal final confrontation in the Highlands. But before their adventure is over, Jane and Seth will encounter their biggest shock of all...and realize nothing can be the same for them ever again. 

Audiobook available, read by Elisabeth Rodgers

Editorial Content for Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Lorraine W. Shanley

The story of Colditz Castle’s unusual role in WWII has been recounted in memoirs, movies and histories. Much of it, according to British author Ben Macintyre, focused on a few great feats, while ignoring what life was like for the four years it functioned as Nazi Germany’s maximum security prison for Allied officers. In 1939, the officers who were deemed deutschfeindlich, or “German-unfriendly,” and were likely to try to escape were sent there. Read More

Teaser

During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend. But as Ben Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis.

Promo

During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend. But as Ben Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis.

About the Book

The “entertaining yet objective and often-moving account” (The Wall Street Journal) of one of history’s most notorious prisons --- and the remarkable cast of POWs who tried relentlessly to escape their captors, from the author of THE SPY AND THE TRAITOR.

In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend.

But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyre’s telling, Colditz’s most famous names --- like the indomitable Pat Reid --- share glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs.

PRISONERS OF THE CASTLE traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed OPERATION MINCEMEAT and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.

Audiobook available, read by Ben Macintyre

Editorial Content for Forsaken Country

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

To say that Max Rupert has fallen off the beaten track into a self-imposed sort of isolation would be an understatement. The tragic death of his wife has led the former Minneapolis homicide detective to leave everything behind, grow his hair out like a true mountain man, and move into a no-frills cabin deep in the woods. Read More

Teaser

Max Rupert has left his position as a Minneapolis homicide detective to live in solitude. Mourning the tragic death of his wife, he's also racked by guilt --- he alone knows what happened to her killer. But then the former local sheriff, Lyle Voight, arrives with a desperate plea: Lyle’s daughter, Sandy, and his six-year-old grandson, Pip, have disappeared. Lyle is certain that Sandy's ex-husband, Reed, is behind it, but the new sheriff is refusing to investigate. When Max reluctantly looks into their disappearance, he too becomes convinced something has gone very wrong. But the closer Max and Lyle get to finding proof, the more slippery Reed becomes, until he makes a break for the beautiful but formidable Boundary Waters wilderness with vulnerable Pip in tow.

Promo

Max Rupert has left his position as a Minneapolis homicide detective to live in solitude. Mourning the tragic death of his wife, he's also racked by guilt --- he alone knows what happened to her killer. But then the former local sheriff, Lyle Voight, arrives with a desperate plea: Lyle’s daughter, Sandy, and his six-year-old grandson, Pip, have disappeared. Lyle is certain that Sandy's ex-husband, Reed, is behind it, but the new sheriff is refusing to investigate. When Max reluctantly looks into their disappearance, he too becomes convinced something has gone very wrong. But the closer Max and Lyle get to finding proof, the more slippery Reed becomes, until he makes a break for the beautiful but formidable Boundary Waters wilderness with vulnerable Pip in tow.

About the Book

Three fathers collide far beyond the reach or safety of the law in this breathtaking thriller from the beloved author of THE STOLEN HOURS and THE LIFE WE BURY, and "one of our best crime writers at the top of his game" (William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author).

Max Rupert has left his position as a Minneapolis homicide detective to live in solitude. Mourning the tragic death of his wife, he's also racked by guilt --- he alone knows what happened to her killer. But then the former local sheriff, Lyle Voight, arrives with a desperate plea: Lyle’s daughter, Sandy, and his six-year-old grandson, Pip, have disappeared. Lyle’s certain Sandy's ex-husband, Reed, is behind it, but the new sheriff is refusing to investigate. 

When Max reluctantly looks into their disappearance, he too becomes convinced something has gone very wrong. But the closer Max and Lyle get to finding proof, the more slippery Reed becomes, until he makes a break for the beautiful but formidable Boundary Waters wilderness with vulnerable Pip in tow.

Racing after the most dangerous kind of criminal --- a desperate father --- and with the ghosts of their own pasts never far behind, Max and Lyle go on the hunt within a treacherous landscape, determined to bring an evil man to justice and to bring a terrified child home alive. 

Audiobook available, read by Brian Troxell

Editorial Content for Uncultured: A Memoir

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

If you are at all familiar with the cult known as The Children of God, you know that a memoir about being raised within it is bound to be very dark and difficult. So you will not be surprised that Daniella Mestyanek Young’s account is replete with horrific abuse and her attempts at building a life beyond the group. From the stifling life within the cult, to the new world of an American high school, to the rigors and rituals of the U.S. Army, UNCULTURED is the story of Daniella’s search for autonomy, control, belonging and safety in the face of almost unbelievable obstacles. Read More

Teaser

Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional and sexual abuse --- masked as godly discipline and divine love --- and is forbidden from getting a traditional education. At 15 years old, Daniella escapes and bravely enrolls herself in high school. After graduating as valedictorian of her college class, she elects to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer. But she soon learns that her new world --- surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan --- looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.

Promo

Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional and sexual abuse --- masked as godly discipline and divine love --- and is forbidden from getting a traditional education. At 15 years old, Daniella escapes and bravely enrolls herself in high school. After graduating as valedictorian of her college class, she elects to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer. But she soon learns that her new world --- surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan --- looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.

About the Book

In the vein of EDUCATED and THE GLASS CASTLE, Daniella Mestyanek Young's UNCULTURED is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome.

Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at 13, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotionl and sexual abuse --- masked as godly discipline and divine love --- and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.

At 15 years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong. 

But she soon learns that her new world --- surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan --- looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.

Told in a beautiful, propulsive voice and with clear-eyed honesty, UNCULTURED explores the dangers unleashed when harmful group mentality goes unrecognized, and is emblematic of the many ways women have to contort themselves to survive.

Audiobook available, read by Daniella Mestyanek Young

Editorial Content for Ithaca

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Eleni Karavoussianis

The nature of myth involves a degree of reimagining to communicate something universal to a modern audience. THE ODYSSEY is familiar among English classrooms, and I’ve read my fair share of retellings. Anything involving Greek myth holds close to my heart. However, of all the perspectives that have been presented, ITHACA is among the most original of these takes. Read More

Teaser

Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom. Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. Everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war. Only through cunning, wit and her trusted circle of maids can she maintain the tenuous peace needed for the kingdom to survive.

Promo

Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom. Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. Everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war. Only through cunning, wit and her trusted circle of maids can she maintain the tenuous peace needed for the kingdom to survive.

About the Book

From the multi-award-winning author Claire North comes a daring reimagining that breathes life into ancient myth and gives voice to the women who stand defiant in a world ruled by ruthless men. It’s time for the women of Ithaca to tell their tale.

Seventeen years ago, King Odysseus sailed to war with Troy, taking with him every man of fighting age from the island of Ithaca. None of them has returned, and the women of Ithaca have been left behind to run the kingdom.

Penelope was barely into womanhood when she wed Odysseus. While he lived, her position was secure. But now, years on, speculation is mounting that her husband is dead, and suitors are beginning to knock at her door. 

No one man is strong enough to claim Odysseus' empty throne --- not yet. But everyone waits for the balance of power to tip, and Penelope knows that any choice she makes could plunge Ithaca into bloody civil war. Only through cunning, wit and her trusted circle of maids, can she maintain the tenuous peace needed for the kingdom to survive.

This is the story of Penelope of Ithaca, famed wife of Odysseus, as it has never been told before. Beyond Ithaca’s shores, the whims of gods dictate the wars of men. But on the isle, it is the choices of the abandoned women --- and their goddesses --- that will change the course of the world.

Audiobook available, read by Catrin Walker-Booth

Editorial Content for The Complicities

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

For years, Suzanne blithely looked the other way, professing ignorance about financial matters as her family prospered thanks to her husband Alan’s illegal and unethical mismanagement of other people’s life savings (think Bernie Madoff here). After Alan’s crimes catch up with him and he’s put in white-collar prison, newly divorced Suzanne is desperate for a fresh start. Read More

Teaser

After her husband Alan’s decades of financial fraud are exposed, Suzanne’s wealthy, comfortable life shatters. Alan goes to prison. Suzanne files for divorce, decamps to a barely middle-class Massachusetts beach town, and begins to create a new life and identity. Then Alan is released early, and the many people whose lives he ruined demand restitution. But when Suzanne finds herself awestruck at a major whale stranding, she makes an apparently high-minded decision that ripples with devastating effect not only through Alan’s life as he tries to rebuild but also through the lives of Suzanne and Alan’s son, Alan’s new wife, his estranged mother and, ultimately, Suzanne herself. When damage is done, who pays? Who loses? Who is responsible?

Promo

After her husband Alan’s decades of financial fraud are exposed, Suzanne’s wealthy, comfortable life shatters. Alan goes to prison. Suzanne files for divorce, decamps to a barely middle-class Massachusetts beach town, and begins to create a new life and identity. Then Alan is released early, and the many people whose lives he ruined demand restitution. But when Suzanne finds herself awestruck at a major whale stranding, she makes an apparently high-minded decision that ripples with devastating effect not only through Alan’s life as he tries to rebuild but also through the lives of Suzanne and Alan’s son, Alan’s new wife, his estranged mother and, ultimately, Suzanne herself. When damage is done, who pays? Who loses? Who is responsible?

About the Book

Award-winning author Stacey D’Erasmo tells a haunting and emotionally affecting story about a woman trying to rebuild her life after her husband’s arrest, and what she knew --- or pretended not to know --- about where their family’s money came from.

After her husband Alan’s decades of financial fraud are exposed, Suzanne’s wealthy, comfortable life shatters. Alan goes to prison. Suzanne files for divorce, decamps to a barely middle-class Massachusetts beach town, and begins to create a new life and identity. Ignoring a steady stream of calls from Norfolk State Prison, she tries to cleanse herself of all connections to her ex-husband. She tells herself that he, not she, committed the crimes.

Then Alan is released early, and the many people whose lives he ruined demand restitution. But when Suzanne finds herself awestruck at a major whale stranding, she makes an apparently high-minded decision that ripples with devastating effect not only through Alan’s life as he tries to rebuild but also through the lives of Suzanne and Alan’s son, Alan’s new wife, his estranged mother and, ultimately, Suzanne herself.

When damage is done, who pays? Who loses? Who is responsible?

With biting wisdom, THE COMPLICITIES examines the ways in which the stories we tell ourselves --- that we didn’t know, that we weren’t there, that it wasn’t our fault --- are also finally stories of our own deep complicity.

Audiobook available, read by Xe Sands

Editorial Content for Landslide

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

L. Dean Murphy

This prodigious series launch introduces Mason Hackett as a senior partner at Ruttfield & Leason, a London investment firm. Hackett jets about Europe cobbling mega-bucks transactions. At a Frankfurt financial firm, he learns from muted TV news captions accompanied by a photo that journalist Henry Delgado has been kidnapped in Ukraine. Read More

Teaser

U.S. Marine veteran Mason Hackett moved to London to start his life over, and he’s done his best to convince himself that what happened 15 years ago doesn’t matter --- the people he killed, the men he lost, the lives he ruined. But when Mason sees the face of a dead friend flash on a television screen and then receives a mysterious email referencing a CIA operation gone bad, no longer can he ignore his inner demons. Driven by loyalty and a need to uncover the truth, Mason launches on a perilous journey to honor a 15-year-old promise. The answers he seeks --- the fate of a friend and his connection to the underworld of international arms dealers and defense corporations --- throw him into the cauldron of a covert war where no one can be trusted.

Promo

U.S. Marine veteran Mason Hackett moved to London to start his life over, and he’s done his best to convince himself that what happened 15 years ago doesn’t matter --- the people he killed, the men he lost, the lives he ruined. But when Mason sees the face of a dead friend flash on a television screen and then receives a mysterious email referencing a CIA operation gone bad, no longer can he ignore his inner demons. Driven by loyalty and a need to uncover the truth, Mason launches on a perilous journey to honor a 15-year-old promise. The answers he seeks --- the fate of a friend and his connection to the underworld of international arms dealers and defense corporations --- throw him into the cauldron of a covert war where no one can be trusted.

About the Book

U.S. Marine veteran Mason Hackett moved to London to start his life over, and he’s done his best to convince himself that what happened 15 years ago doesn’t matter --- the people he killed, the men he lost, the lives he ruined. But when Mason sees the face of a dead friend flash on a television screen and then receives a mysterious email referencing a CIA operation gone bad, no longer can he ignore his inner demons.

Driven by loyalty and a need to uncover the truth, Mason launches on a perilous journey from the Czech Republic to Romania toward the war-torn separatist region in eastern Ukraine to honor a 15-year-old promise. The answers he seeks --- the fate of a friend and his connection to the underworld of international arms dealers and defense corporations --- throw Mason into the cauldron of a covert war where no one can be trusted.

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

September 2022

While Alice Feeney crafts a good plot, what I really enjoy about her writing is her twist of a phrase. As I read her work, I find myself folding down one page after the next where the writing gives me pause. Her plotting aside, this is what makes me want to read one of her books, and DAISY DARKER fits the bill for this. I am not sharing them here as I want you to uncover these little Easter eggs of word joy for yourself.

The Real Mrs. Tobias by Sally Koslow

September 2022

I have long enjoyed Sally Koslow’s writing, and her latest, THE REAL MRS. TOBIAS, is another great read. The book revolves around three women, all of whom are known as Mrs. Tobias. The first is Veronika, the matriarch of the family. A psychotherapist, she sets a very high bar for everyone with her lovely dinners, impeccable outfits (she does not know the meaning of the word casual) and exacting nature. The second is her daughter-in-law, Mel, who also is a therapist, albeit with fewer degrees than Veronika, which is duly noted. Mel has an artistic nature and is more of a free spirit. The third is Birdie. She is married to Micah, Mel’s son, and her daughter is Alice, a very doted-upon little girl.