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Editorial Content for Insomnia

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

Sarah Pinborough’s latest thriller, INSOMNIA, is being compared to her 2017 masterpiece, BEHIND HER EYES, which Netflix turned into a binge-worthy miniseries. Does it live up to the hype? You bet it does!

The monsters were never
under my bed.
Because the monsters
were inside my head.

These words from Nikita Gill’s “Monsters” appear in the book’s epigraph and nicely sets the reader up for what’s to come. Read More

Teaser

Emma Averell loves her life, but it wasn’t always so perfect. When she was just five years old, Emma and her older sister went into foster care because of a deeply disturbing incident with their mother. Her sister can remember a time when their mother was loving and “normal,” but Emma can only remember her as one thing --- a monster. And that monster emerged right around their mother’s 40th birthday, the same milestone Emma is approaching now. Emma desperately wants to keep her childhood trauma in the past, but as she stops being able to sleep, she also can’t stop thinking about what happened all those years ago. Is the madness in her blood? Could she end up hurting her family just like her mother? Or is there another explanation for the strange things that keep happening around her?

Promo

Emma Averell loves her life, but it wasn’t always so perfect. When she was just five years old, Emma and her older sister went into foster care because of a deeply disturbing incident with their mother. Her sister can remember a time when their mother was loving and “normal,” but Emma can only remember her as one thing --- a monster. And that monster emerged right around their mother’s 40th birthday, the same milestone Emma is approaching now. Emma desperately wants to keep her childhood trauma in the past, but as she stops being able to sleep, she also can’t stop thinking about what happened all those years ago. Is the madness in her blood? Could she end up hurting her family just like her mother? Or is there another explanation for the strange things that keep happening around her?

About the Book

In the dead of night, madness lies...

Emma Averell loves her life --- her high-powered legal career, her two beautiful children and her wonderful stay-at-home husband --- but it wasn’t always so perfect. When she was just five years old, Emma and her older sister went into foster care because of a deeply disturbing incident with their mother. Her sister can remember a time when their mother was loving and “normal,” but Emma can only remember her as one thing --- a monster. And that monster emerged right around their mother’s 40th birthday, the same milestone Emma is approaching now.

Emma desperately wants to keep her childhood trauma in the past, but as she stops being able to sleep, she also can’t stop thinking about what happened all those years ago. Is the madness in her blood? Could she end up hurting her family in her foggy, half-awake state, just like her mother? Or is there another explanation for the strange things that keep happening around her? Emma must unravel the dark strands of her past to protect the people she loves…or risk losing it all, including her sanity.

Audiobook available, read by Sarah Durham

Editorial Content for The No-Show

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

In what is certainly her most ambitious project yet, Beth O’Leary’s THE NO-SHOW is not just one romantic comedy --- it’s three! Read More

Teaser

Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth. These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: they’ve all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up --- Valentine’s Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they’ve all been stood up by the same man. Once they've each forgiven him for standing them up, they are all in serious danger of falling in love with a man who may have not just one or two but three women on the go. Is there more to him than meets the eye?

Promo

Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth. These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: they’ve all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up --- Valentine’s Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they’ve all been stood up by the same man. Once they've each forgiven him for standing them up, they are all in serious danger of falling in love with a man who may have not just one or two but three women on the go. Is there more to him than meets the eye?

About the Book

Three women who seemingly have nothing in common find that they're involved with the same man in this smart new rom-com by Beth O'Leary, bestselling author of THE FLATSHARE.

Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth.

These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: they’ve all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up --- Valentine’s Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they’ve all been stood up by the same man.

Once they've each forgiven him for standing them up, they are all in serious danger of falling in love with a man who may have not just one or two but three women on the go.

Is there more to him than meets the eye? Where was he on Valentine’s Day? And will they each untangle the truth before they all get their hearts broken?

Audiobook available; read by Evanna Lynch, Heather Long, Kathryn Drysdale and Luke Thompson

Editorial Content for Unlikely Animals

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Annie Hartnett, the acclaimed author of RABBIT CAKE, invites readers to Everton, New Hampshire --- a small town as full of heart as it is drama --- in UNLIKELY ANIMALS, a wildly compelling novel about life, death and what comes after. Read More

Teaser

Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A medical school dropout, she’s come back to Everton, New Hampshire, to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as having visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days. Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad’s illness, her mom’s judgment and her younger brother’s recent stint in rehab. But she’s unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her.

Promo

Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A medical school dropout, she’s come back to Everton, New Hampshire, to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as having visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days. Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad’s illness, her mom’s judgment and her younger brother’s recent stint in rehab. But she’s unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her.

About the Book

A lost young woman returns to small-town New Hampshire under the strangest of circumstances in this one-of-a-kind novel of life, death and whatever comes after from the acclaimed author of RABBIT CAKE.

It was a source of entertainment at Maple Street Cemetery. Both funny and sad, the kind of story we like best. 

Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A medical school dropout, she’s come back to small-town Everton, New Hampshire, to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as having visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days.

Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad’s illness, her mom’s judgment and her younger brother’s recent stint in rehab. But she’s unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her. The police say they don’t spend much time looking for drug addicts. Emma’s dad is the only one convinced the young woman might still be alive, and Emma is hopeful he could be right. Someone should look for her, at least. Emma isn’t really trying to be a hero, but somehow she and her father bring about just the kind of miracle the town needs. 

Set against the backdrop of a small town in the throes of a very real opioid crisis, UNLIKELY ANIMALS is a tragicomic novel about familial expectations, imperfect friendships and the possibility of resurrecting that which had been thought irrevocably lost.

Audiobook available, read by Mark Bramhall and Kirby Heyborne

Editorial Content for To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth: The Epic Hunt for the South's Most Feared Ship --- and the Greatest Sea Battle of the Civil War

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Curtis Edmonds

“Named the Alabama, this cruiser had as her captain Raphael Semmes, who had already proved his prowess as a salt-water guerrilla on the now-defunct C.S.S Sumter. For the next two years Semmes and the Alabama roamed the seas and destroyed or captured sixty-four American merchant ships before being sunk by the U.S.S. Kearsarge off Cherbourg in June 1864.” – James M. McPherson, BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM: The Civil War Era Read More

Teaser

On June 19, 1864, just off the coast of France, one of the most dramatic naval battles in history took place. On a clear day with windswept skies, the dreaded Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the finish, the outcome of which would effectively end the threat of the Confederacy on the high seas. Award-winning and bestselling historians Phil Keith and Tom Clavin introduce some of the crucial but historically overlooked players in the deciding clash. Readers will sail aboard the Kearsarge as Winslow embarks for Europe with a set of simple orders from the Secretary of the Navy: "Travel to the uttermost ends of the earth, if necessary, to find and destroy the Alabama."

Promo

On June 19, 1864, just off the coast of France, one of the most dramatic naval battles in history took place. On a clear day with windswept skies, the dreaded Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the finish, the outcome of which would effectively end the threat of the Confederacy on the high seas. Award-winning and bestselling historians Phil Keith and Tom Clavin introduce some of the crucial but historically overlooked players in the deciding clash. Readers will sail aboard the Kearsarge as Winslow embarks for Europe with a set of simple orders from the Secretary of the Navy: "Travel to the uttermost ends of the earth, if necessary, to find and destroy the Alabama."

About the Book

The enthralling story of the greatest Civil War battle at sea by the award-winning and bestselling historians Phil Keith and Tom Clavin.

On June 19, 1864, just off the coast of France, one of the most dramatic naval battles in history took place. On a clear day with windswept skies, the dreaded Confederate raider Alabama faced the Union warship Kearsarge in an all-or-nothing fight to the finish, the outcome of which would effectively end the threat of the Confederacy on the high seas.

Award-winning and bestselling historians Phil Keith and Tom Clavin introduce some of the crucial but historically overlooked players in the deciding clash. Readers will sail aboard the Kearsarge as Winslow embarks for Europe with a set of simple orders from the Secretary of the Navy: "Travel to the uttermost ends of the earth, if necessary, to find and destroy the Alabama."

Audiobook available, read by Joe Knezevich

Editorial Content for Sea Storm

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

Former illusionist Andrew Mayne could not have chosen a better sideline career than fiction writing --- especially mysteries and thrillers in which he constantly has something up his sleeve. A perfect example of this is SEA STORM, the third entry in his Underwater Investigation Unit series set in Florida. Read More

Teaser

A distress call draws rescuers Sloan McPherson and the Underwater Investigation Unit to a cruise ship off the coast of Fort Lauderdale that’s sinking from a mysterious explosion. When it appears to be the work of an ecoterrorist and other ships are threatened, it becomes a race against time. More clues are discovered, and evidence is in danger of being washed away by a coming tropical storm. Sloan grows concerned that key details are being ignored, and a strange lack of urgency by authorities sets off alarms. As the troubling questions compound, Sloan is determined to chase down every lead she has. Her persistence is getting her closer to the truth: that there’s something far more troubling at play than the official explanation. It’s also putting Sloan on a collision course with an enemy more powerful than she realizes.

Promo

A distress call draws rescuers Sloan McPherson and the Underwater Investigation Unit to a cruise ship off the coast of Fort Lauderdale that’s sinking from a mysterious explosion. When it appears to be the work of an ecoterrorist and other ships are threatened, it becomes a race against time. More clues are discovered, and evidence is in danger of being washed away by a coming tropical storm. Sloan grows concerned that key details are being ignored, and a strange lack of urgency by authorities sets off alarms. As the troubling questions compound, Sloan is determined to chase down every lead she has. Her persistence is getting her closer to the truth: that there’s something far more troubling at play than the official explanation. It’s also putting Sloan on a collision course with an enemy more powerful than she realizes.

About the Book

An explosive conspiracy sets the ocean roiling for a deep-diving investigator in a riveting thriller by the author of the Amazon Charts bestseller THE GIRL BENEATH THE SEA.

A distress call draws rescuers Sloan McPherson and the Underwater Investigation Unit to a cruise ship off the coast of Fort Lauderdale that’s sinking from a mysterious explosion. When it appears to be the work of an ecoterrorist and other ships are threatened, it becomes a race against time. More clues are discovered, and evidence is in danger of being washed away by a coming tropical storm. Sloan grows concerned that key details are being ignored, and a strange lack of urgency by authorities sets off alarms.

As the troubling questions compound, Sloan is determined to chase down every lead she has. Her persistence is getting her closer to the truth: that there’s something far more troubling at play than the official explanation. It’s also putting Sloan on a collision course with an enemy more powerful than she realizes, in a case so complex and deadly it may be impossible to prove. Now cracking the case is a matter of staying one step ahead of someone with every resource imaginable to bury Sloan and everything she knows.

Audiobook available, read by Susannah Jones

Editorial Content for A Tiny Upward Shove

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Norah Piehl

At times, Melissa Chadburn’s debut novel, A TINY UPWARD SHOVE, is almost painfully difficult to read. It’s not because the language is obscure or complex, and it’s not because the imagery is confusing or the sentence structure too dense. Rather, at certain points, the sheer weight of the violence, disappointment and heartbreak that Chadburn writes about becomes nearly too much to bear, especially once readers realize that much of what she chronicles is based on real-life tragedies. Read More

Teaser

Marina Salles’ life does not end the day she wakes up dead. Instead, in the course of a moment, she is transformed into the stuff of myth, the stuff of her grandmother’s old Filipino stories --- an aswang, a creature of mystery and vengeance. She spent her time on earth on the margins. Shot like a pinball through a childhood of loss, she was a veteran of Child Protective Services and a survivor, but always reacting, watching from a distance, understanding very little of her own life, let alone the lives of others. Death brings her into the hearts and minds of those she has known --- even her killer --- as she accesses their memories and sees anew the meaning of her own.

Promo

Marina Salles’ life does not end the day she wakes up dead. Instead, in the course of a moment, she is transformed into the stuff of myth, the stuff of her grandmother’s old Filipino stories --- an aswang, a creature of mystery and vengeance. She spent her time on earth on the margins. Shot like a pinball through a childhood of loss, she was a veteran of Child Protective Services and a survivor, but always reacting, watching from a distance, understanding very little of her own life, let alone the lives of others. Death brings her into the hearts and minds of those she has known --- even her killer --- as she accesses their memories and sees anew the meaning of her own.

About the Book

A TINY UPWARD SHOVE is inspired by Melissa Chadburn's Filipino heritage and its folklore, as it traces the too-short life of a young, cast-off woman transformed by death into an agent of justice --- or mercy.

Marina Salles’ life does not end the day she wakes up dead.

Instead, in the course of a moment, she is transformed into the stuff of myth, the stuff of her grandmother’s old Filipino stories --- an aswang, a creature of mystery and vengeance. She spent her time on earth on the margins; shot like a pinball through a childhood of loss, she was a veteran of Child Protective Services and a survivor, but always reacting, watching from a distance, understanding very little of her own life, let alone the lives of others. Death brings her into the hearts and minds of those she has known --- even her killer --- as she accesses their memories and sees anew the meaning of her own. In her nine days as an aswang, while she considers whether to exact vengeance on her killer, she also traces back, finally able to see what led these two lost souls to a crushingly inevitable conclusion.

In A TINY UPWARD SHOVE, the debut novelist Melissa Chadburn charts the heartbreaking journeys of two of society’s castoffs as they make their way to each other and their roles as criminal and victim. What does it mean to be on the brink? When are those moments that change not only our lives but our very selves? And how, in this impossible world, full of cruelty and negligence, can we rouse ourselves toward mercy?

Audiobook available, read by Kelsey Navarro

Editorial Content for Reptile Memoirs

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

The term Nordic noir has pretty much found a life of its own with so many terrific books and authors coming out from that part of the world. Case in point: Silje Ulstein’s debut novel, REPTILE MEMOIRS, which Alison McCullough has expertly translated.

The book opens in 2003 in the quaint Norwegian town of Ålesund. Liv and her roommates, Egil and Ingvar, are high on weed when they see a python on a nature show, and they all agree that they need a snake for their apartment. So they go right out and adopt a lovely Burmese python named Nero and bring him home. Read More

Teaser

One night, in the early-morning embers of a great party in the basement apartment she shares with two friends, Liv is watching TV, high on weed, and sees a python on an Australian nature show. She becomes obsessed with the idea of buying a snake as a pet. Nero, the baby Burmese python, soon becomes the apartment's fourth roommate. Thirteen years later, Mariam Lind goes on a shopping trip with 11-year-old Iben, who angers her mother by asking for a magazine one too many times. Mariam storms off, leaving Iben in the shop, and goes on a long calming drive. When she returns home, her husband is relieved to see her but terrified that Iben isn't also there. Detective Roe Olsvik realizes that there is much more to this case and these characters than their outer appearances would suggest.

Promo

One night, in the early-morning embers of a great party in the basement apartment she shares with two friends, Liv is watching TV, high on weed, and sees a python on an Australian nature show. She becomes obsessed with the idea of buying a snake as a pet. Nero, the baby Burmese python, soon becomes the apartment's fourth roommate. Thirteen years later, Mariam Lind goes on a shopping trip with 11-year-old Iben, who angers her mother by asking for a magazine one too many times. Mariam storms off, leaving Iben in the shop, and goes on a long calming drive. When she returns home, her husband is relieved to see her but terrified that Iben isn't also there. Detective Roe Olsvik realizes that there is much more to this case and these characters than their outer appearances would suggest.

About the Book

A bestselling Norwegian debut already sold in 13 territories, REPTILE MEMOIRS is a brilliantly twisty and unusual literary thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn, Jo Nesbø, Kate Atkinson and Tana French, asking the question: Can you ever really shed your skin?

Liv has a lot of secrets. For her, home is the picturesque town of Ålesund, perched on a fjord in western Norway. One night, in the early-morning embers of a great party in the basement apartment she shares with two friends, Liv is watching TV, high on weed, and sees a python on an Australian nature show. She becomes obsessed with the idea of buying a snake as a pet. Nero, the baby Burmese python, soon becomes the apartment's fourth roommate. As Liv bonds with Nero, she feels extremely protective, like a caring mother, and she is struck by a desire that surprises her with its intensity. Finally she is safe.

Thirteen years later, in the nearby town of Kristiansund, Mariam Lind goes on a shopping trip with her 11-year-old daughter, Iben, who angers her mother by asking for a magazine one too many times. Mariam storms off, leaving Iben in the shop and, expecting her young daughter to find her own way home, heads off on a long calming drive. When she returns home in the evening, her husband is relieved to see her but terrified that Iben isn't also there. Detective Roe Olsvik is assigned to the case of Iben's disappearance; he has just turned 60 and is new to the Kristiansund police department. As he interrogates Mariam, he instantly suspects her --- but there is much more to this case and these characters than their outer appearances would suggest.

A biting and constantly shifting tale of family secrets, rebirth and the legacy of trauma, REPTILE MEMOIRS is a brilliant exploration of the cold-bloodedness of humanity, and the struggle to mend broken lives and families.

Audiobook available, read by Julie Maisey

April 15, 2022

When we left off last week, I literally was racing out the door to see Sally Hepworth, who was in Maplewood, NJ to talk about her new book, THE YOUNGER WIFE. I had met Sally in the summer of 2019...you know, those long-ago days when there were in-person events? What a way to get back out on the town! She is from Australia, and I so wish she lived closer. We had what is never enough time catching up; I would love to have her spend a weekend here.

The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth

April 2022

Sally Hepworth is one of my favorite authors, so I happily plucked her new thriller, THE YOUNGER WIFE, from my shelves and devoured it. The catalyst for the idea for this one came from her great aunty Gwen. A throwaway line from Gwen got her thinking about a plot point that comes later in the book. Who is the “younger wife,” and what is going on in this family? It opens with a wedding. But it also opens with blood! So from the start, you know things are not going to go well.

Sister Stardust by Jane Green

April 2022

I completely devoured SISTER STARDUST, Jane Green’s first historical novel. For years, Jane has been interested in Talitha Getty, the second wife of John Paul Getty Jr. This book reimagines her life in the '60s during her time in Morocco, which were some very hedonistic days. A famous model and actress, Talitha is rich, exuberant and universally loved. The story is told through the eyes of Claire, who renames herself Cece. She moves from her small English town to London and is swept up in Talitha's world. The closer they grow, the more Claire learns about the dark past of this mysterious and revered woman.