Editorial Content for Storm Warning
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
David Bell has made a fine career for himself writing top-notch psychological thrillers that seem to be conceived from the collective nightmares of his readers. His latest effort is no exception. Read More
Teaser
Jake Powell is racing to get off the Florida barrier island on which he lives as a powerful hurricane approaches. When he finds his best friend Dallas, the building manager, dead from a blow to the skull, Jake realizes there’s more than the storm to fear. There’s a murderer on the island, maybe even still inside the nearly abandoned building. Dallas had repeatedly run afoul of the wealthy owners of the building by complaining about code violations and the precarious state of the condos. But he’d also once told Jake that every resident had a secret they’d come to Florida to escape. Had one of them killed to conceal their sins? As a dozen people shelter together in hopes of surviving the deadly hurricane, a second murder makes it all too clear: one of them is a dangerous killer.
Promo
Jake Powell is racing to get off the Florida barrier island on which he lives as a powerful hurricane approaches. When he finds his best friend Dallas, the building manager, dead from a blow to the skull, Jake realizes there’s more than the storm to fear. There’s a murderer on the island, maybe even still inside the nearly abandoned building. Dallas had repeatedly run afoul of the wealthy owners of the building by complaining about code violations and the precarious state of the condos. But he’d also once told Jake that every resident had a secret they’d come to Florida to escape. Had one of them killed to conceal their sins? As a dozen people shelter together in hopes of surviving the deadly hurricane, a second murder makes it all too clear: one of them is a dangerous killer.
About the Book
A man living on a Florida barrier island must protect his family from both an approaching hurricane and a relentless killer.
Jake Powell is racing to get off the Florida barrier island on which he lives as a powerful hurricane approaches. When he finds his best friend Dallas, the building manager, dead from a blow to the skull, Jake realizes there’s more than the storm to fear. There’s a murderer on the island, maybe even still inside the nearly abandoned building.
Dallas had repeatedly run afoul of the wealthy owners of the building by complaining about code violations and the precarious state of the condos. But he’d also once told Jake that every resident had a secret they’d come to Florida to escape. Had one of them killed to conceal their sins? As a dozen people shelter together in hopes of surviving the deadly hurricane, a second murder makes it all too clear: one of them is a dangerous killer.
Audiobook available, read by Sean Patrick Hopkins
Editorial Content for God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
It's rare to read a novel in which a vibrant yet intimate portrait of a character is not only a feature, it's kind of the whole point. It's even rarer for the reader to be so totally immersed in that character's consciousness, in which his or her voice and the substance of the book are so thoroughly commingled. When I was trying to describe the experience of reading Joseph Earl Thomas' debut novel to others, I just gave up, thrust a page at them and commanded, "You just have to read it yourself." Read More
Teaser
After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round-the-clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother. Meanwhile, he and his best friend Ray, a fellow vet, are alternatingly bonding over and struggling with their shared experience and return to civilian life, locked in their own rhythms of lust, heartbreak and responsibility.
Promo
After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round-the-clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother. Meanwhile, he and his best friend Ray, a fellow vet, are alternatingly bonding over and struggling with their shared experience and return to civilian life, locked in their own rhythms of lust, heartbreak and responsibility.
About the Book
A stirring, unsparing novel about Black life in Philadelphia and the struggle to build intimate connections through the eyes of a struggling ex-Army grad student that “reads like a direct communication from the soul,” (Justin Torres) from the virtuoso author of SINK.
After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round-the-clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother. Meanwhile, he and his best friend Ray, a fellow vet, are alternatingly bonding over and struggling with their shared experience and return to civilian life, locked in their own rhythms of lust, heartbreak and responsibility.
Balancing the joys and frustrations of single fatherhood, his studies and ceaseless shifts at the hospital as he becomes closer than he ever imagined to his father, Joseph tries to articulate vernacular understandings of the sociopolitical struggles he recounts as participant-observer at home, against the assumptions of his friends and colleagues. GOD BLESS YOU, OTIS SPUNKMEYER is a powerful examination of every day Black life --- of health and sex, race and punishment, and the gaps between our desires and our politics.
Audiobook available, read by JD Jackson
Editorial Content for Diamond Cut
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Beyond the glitzy theme parks of Florida’s other Magic City are “working” women along the seedy section of Orange Blossom Trail. What you won’t see there are pricey call girls. This is the tale of one who escaped the downward spiral of “the life,” as sex-trade workers call it. Read More
Teaser
Sandy Corrigan used to be called Diamond. She used to live in an apartment with other girls like her, though she rarely slept there. Instead, she spent her evenings in hotel rooms with lonely, unfaithful men. That is, until the incident. But despite the personal hell she endured, the nightmarish crisis saved her from a life spent in strangers’ beds. Sandy now spends her evenings reading to her six-year-old son, Tyler, and her days working for her brother’s private investigation business. Despite severing all ties to her former life, a girl from her past reappears and asks Sandy to investigate the disappearance of a young call girl. Sandy takes the case. But what she doesn’t expect to discover is a sordid web of corruption, sex and murder, and she soon grows more entangled with each step she takes.
Promo
Sandy Corrigan used to be called Diamond. She used to live in an apartment with other girls like her, though she rarely slept there. Instead, she spent her evenings in hotel rooms with lonely, unfaithful men. That is, until the incident. But despite the personal hell she endured, the nightmarish crisis saved her from a life spent in strangers’ beds. Sandy now spends her evenings reading to her six-year-old son, Tyler, and her days working for her brother’s private investigation business. Despite severing all ties to her former life, a girl from her past reappears and asks Sandy to investigate the disappearance of a young call girl. Sandy takes the case. But what she doesn’t expect to discover is a sordid web of corruption, sex and murder, and she soon grows more entangled with each step she takes.
About the Book
To find a missing girl, Sandy must return to the insidious places she once worked tirelessly to escape.
Sandy Corrigan used to be called Diamond. She used to live in an apartment with other girls like her, though she rarely slept there, instead spending her evenings in hotel rooms around Orlando with lonely, unfaithful men. That is, until the incident.
But despite the personal hell she endured, the nightmarish crisis saved her from a life spent in strangers’ beds. Sandy now spends her evenings reading to her six-year-old son, Tyler, and her days working for her brother’s private investigation business.
Despite severing all ties to her former life, a girl from her past reappears and asks Sandy to investigate the disappearance of a young call girl. Unsure of whether or not the girl is alive, and wary of the past traumas the investigation could bring to the surface, Sandy takes the case. What she doesn’t expect to discover is a sordid web of corruption, sex and murder, and she soon grows more entangled with each step she takes. Can she survive the horrors she thought she escaped years ago?
Audiobook available, read by Christin Reinmuth
Which of the following titles releasing in July have you read or do you plan to read? Please check all that apply.
July 12, 2024, 880 voters
July 12, 2024
As promised, I spent the holiday weekend reading. There is an art to reading in the pool. If I have an advance copy, I do not worry about getting it wet. So I can float in the pool with the book, or walk around with it as shown above with BAD TOURISTS by Caro Carver. (My husband snapped this picture when I was not looking.) If it is a hardcover, I instead read standing at the side of the pool, which is how I read THE CLIFFS by J. Courtney Sullivan. (We are reviewing both this week, and they also will be Bookreporter.com Bets On selections.) When floating, another option is audio, which I have been doing so I can enjoy more books.