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Editorial Content for Fake

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Lorraine W. Shanley

FAKE, a novel about the art world and its relationship with forgeries, is also about the many ways in which society promotes and condones the “fake”--- in culture, social media and even the lies we tell ourselves.

"Katz makes us root for Emma and her friends...and hope that she can navigate through her troubles, both internal and external."

Teaser

Emma Caan is a forger, an artist who specializes in 19th-century paintings. But she isn’t a criminal; her copies are commissioned by museums and ultra-wealthy collectors protecting their investments. Emma has more than mastered a Gauguin brushstroke and a van Gogh wheat field, but her work is sometimes a painful reminder of the artistic dreams she once chased for herself. When oligarch art collector Leonard Sobetsky unexpectedly appears with an invitation, Emma sees a way out --- a new job, a new path for herself, and access to the kind of money she needs to support her unstable and recently widowed mother. But every invitation incurs an obligation…and Emma isn’t prepared for what’s to come.

Promo

Emma Caan is a forger, an artist who specializes in 19th-century paintings. But she isn’t a criminal; her copies are commissioned by museums and ultra-wealthy collectors protecting their investments. Emma has more than mastered a Gauguin brushstroke and a van Gogh wheat field, but her work is sometimes a painful reminder of the artistic dreams she once chased for herself. When oligarch art collector Leonard Sobetsky unexpectedly appears with an invitation, Emma sees a way out --- a new job, a new path for herself, and access to the kind of money she needs to support her unstable and recently widowed mother. But every invitation incurs an obligation…and Emma isn’t prepared for what’s to come.

About the Book

From the author of THE BOYS' CLUB, a gripping novel set in the high-stakes world of art forgery that moves across the globe, from the trendy art galleries of Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood to the high-flying international art fairs of Hong Kong.

Can you spot the difference? 

Emma Caan is a fake. 

She’s a forger, an artist who specializes in 19th-century paintings. But she isn’t a criminal; her copies are commissioned by museums and ultra-wealthy collectors protecting their investments. Emma has more than mastered a Gauguin brushstroke and a van Gogh wheat field, but her work is sometimes a painful reminder of the artistic dreams she once chased for herself, when she was younger and before her family and her world fell apart. 

When oligarch art collector Leonard Sobetsky unexpectedly appears with an invitation, Emma sees a way out --- a new job, a new path for herself, and access to the kind of money she needs to support her unstable and recently widowed mother. 

But every invitation incurs an obligation...and Emma isn’t prepared for what’s to come. As she’s pulled further into Leonard’s opulent scene, she will discover what’s lurking beneath the glitz and glamour. When she does, the past she’s worked hard to overcome will collide with the present, making her wonder how much of her carefully curated life is just as fake as her forgeries.

Audiobook available, read by Andi Arndt

Editorial Content for Cherish Farrah

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Bethany C. Morrow, the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of the young adult book A SONG BELOW WATER, returns to adult fiction with CHERISH FARRAH, a gripping and deliciously creepy thriller perfect for readers of WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING and THE OTHER BLACK GIRL. Read More

Teaser

Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, was adopted by a white, wealthy family. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can’t seem to afford --- and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she’s convinced she’s always had over her life by staying with Cherish. As troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family, the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house.

Promo

Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, was adopted by a white, wealthy family. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can’t seem to afford --- and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she’s convinced she’s always had over her life by staying with Cherish. As troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family, the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house.

About the Book

From bestselling author Bethany C. Morrow comes a new adult social horror novel in the vein of Get Out meets MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER, about Farrah, a young, calculating Black girl who manipulates her way into the lives of her Black best friend’s white, wealthy, adoptive family but soon suspects she may not be the only one with ulterior motives.

Seventeen-year-old Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, adopted by a white, wealthy family, is something Farrah likes to call WGS --- White Girl Spoiled. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can’t seem to afford --- and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she’s convinced she’s always had over her life by staying with Cherish, the only person she loves --- even when she hates her.

As troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family, the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house. She might trust them --- if they didn’t think something was wrong with Farrah, too. When strange things start happening at the Whitman household --- debilitating illnesses, upsetting fever dreams, an inexplicable tension with Cherish’s hotheaded boyfriend, and a mysterious journal that seems to keep track of what is happening to Farrah --- it’s nothing she can’t handle. But soon everything begins to unravel when the Whitmans invite Farrah closer, and it’s anyone’s guess who is really in control.

Told in Farrah’s chilling, unforgettable voice and weaving in searing commentary on race and class, this slow-burn social horror will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page.

Audiobook available, read by Angel Pean

The Cage by Bonnie Kistler

February 2022

I read THE CAGE by Bonnie Kistler a few months ago. The story was so well written that writing this I feel like I read it yesterday. The setup is great. Two women are working late at a high-end fashion company on a Sunday night. They get on the same elevator. The lights go out, and the elevator stalls. Help is called. By the time they get to the lobby and the doors open, one woman is dead. Was it a murder or a suicide? The survivor is Shay Lambert, the company’s newest lawyer; the deceased is Lucy Barton-Jones, their seemingly unflappable human resources director. Shay immediately calls it a suicide, but Lucy’s husband is stumped.

February 25, 2022

January felt like a year, and February has felt like a week! We are juggling a crazy number of projects, which may be why the time is passing so quickly. I have lists of authors to interview and other projects on spreadsheets all over my desktop. We use an organization program called Monday.com. We get a lot more done for having a place where we all can see what is going on --- and add projects. But just organizing things takes up so much of the day, even with the best tools on hand!

Alfred Adler

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Attribution

Alfred Adler

Spring Preview 2022

The arrival of spring signals the end of our Spring Preview contests. Many thanks to all who entered --- and a big congratulations to our winners! Below are the books that we believe you will be talking about over the next few months.

Editorial Content for Very Cold People

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

VERY COLD PEOPLE, Sarah Manguso’s debut novel, explores the small-town Massachusetts upbringing of a girl caught between cultures, stymied by economic anxieties, and trapped by a family that is very cold indeed. Read More

Teaser

For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known. Once home to the country’s oldest and most illustrious families by the tail end of the 20th century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets. Forged in this frigid landscape, Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. As she grows older, she slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm --- from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive.

Promo

For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known. Once home to the country’s oldest and most illustrious families by the tail end of the 20th century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets. Forged in this frigid landscape, Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. As she grows older, she slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm --- from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive.

About the Book

The masterly debut novel from “an exquisitely astute writer” (The Boston Globe), about growing up in --- and out of --- the suffocating constraints of small-town America.

“My parents didn’t belong in Waitsfield, but they moved there anyway.”

For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known. 

Once home to the country’s oldest and most illustrious families --- the Cabots, the Lowells: the “first, best people” --- by the tail end of the 20th century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets.

Forged in this frigid landscape, Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. Hers is no picturesque New England childhood but one of swap meets and factory seconds and powdered milk. Shame blankets her like the thick snow that regularly buries nearly everything in Waitsfield.

As she grows older, Ruthie slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm --- from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive.

In her eagerly anticipated debut novel, Sarah Manguso has written, with characteristic precision, a masterwork on growing up in --- and out of --- the suffocating constraints of a very old, and very cold, small town. At once an ungilded portrait of girlhood at the crossroads of history and social class, as well as a vital confrontation with an all-American whiteness where the ice of emotional restraint meets the embers of smoldering rage, VERY COLD PEOPLE is a haunted jewel of a novel from one of our most virtuosic literary writers.

Audiobook available, read by Rebecca Lowman

Editorial Content for The Violin Conspiracy

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Rebecca Munro

Debut novelist Brendan Slocumb invites readers into the competitive, passionate and racist world of classical music in THE VIOLIN CONSPIRACY, a beautifully rendered and complex novel with a fast-paced mystery at its heart. Read More

Teaser

Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream --- he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. When he discovers that his beat-up family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach. Together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition, the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he's lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray not only must reclaim his precious violin, he must prove to himself --- and the world --- that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.

Promo

Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream --- he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. When he discovers that his beat-up family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach. Together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition, the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he's lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray not only must reclaim his precious violin, he must prove to himself --- and the world --- that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.

About the Book

Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise --- undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world --- when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world.

Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream --- he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music. 
 
When he discovers that his beat-up family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach. Together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition --- the Olympics of classical music --- the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he's lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray not only must reclaim his precious violin, he must prove to himself --- and the world --- that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.

Audiobook available, read by JD Jackson and Brendan Slocumb

Interview: Patrick Strickland, author of The Marauders: Standing Up to Vigilantes in the American Borderlands

Feb 24, 2022

In this interview conducted by Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, author, journalist and editor Patrick Strickland explains why he decided to write THE MARAUDERS, which tells the story of how citizens in a small Arizona border town stood up to anti-immigrant militias and vigilantes. He talks about the major obstacles he had to face during his time in and around Arivaca, Arizona while researching the book and how he tried to overcome them, the benefits and drawbacks of taking on this project as a freelance journalist, and his thoughts on the possibility of peace prevailing in the American borderlands.

Althea Gibson

I always wanted to be somebody. If I made it, it's half because I was game enough to take a lot of punishment along the way and half because there were a lot of people who cared enough to help me.

Attribution

Althea Gibson