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Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution

Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in 12 hours. He knows what he’s done and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. Through a kaleidoscope of women, we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a 17-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy.

Week of January 23, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of January 23rd include THE BIG DARK SKY by Dean Koontz, an exhilarating, twist-filled thriller in which a group of strangers bound by terrifying synchronicity becomes humankind’s hope for survival; VIOLETA, a sweeping novel from Isabel Allende, who tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans 100 years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the 20th century; LORRAINE HANSBERRY by Charles J. Shields, a moving account of the life of the woman behind "A Raisin in the Sun," the most widely anthologized, read and performed play of the American stage; and Julie Otsuka's THE SWIMMERS, a searing, intimate story about what happens to a group of obsessed recreational swimmers when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool.