Surviving Cyril


Ramsey Hootman - 2017
    Though the thought of spending the rest of her life without Tavis is exhausting, Robin has no choice but to pull herself together for the sake of their son. She finds some satisfaction in cutting ties with Tav’s obnoxious best friend, Cyril—a 500-pound hacker who didn’t even bother to come to the funeral. Unfortunately, her three-year-old decides Cyril is now his best buddy, and Robin can’t bear to take anything else away from her son. A few hot dogs and video games won’t do any permanent damage… right? Cyril doesn’t magically transform into a good person—or even a decent one—but he does prove to be a better role model than Robin expected. Gradually, she also begins to realize that Cyril may be the one person who truly understands the magnitude of her loss. He also knows far more about her husband’s death than he’s been letting on. Ramsey Hootman’s trademark blend of humor and heart shines in this offbeat tale of love, loss, and exasperation—guaranteed to leave you breathless at the end.

Jasmine Steele Mystery Series Collection Books 1-3


Kimberly Amato - 2017
    Those who can't get enough of the exciting new wave of hard-boiled women sleuths, created by writers like Megan Abbott, Laura Lippmann, Lisa Lutz, and Vicki Hendricks will love Amato’s take-no-prisoners style, her unflinching attention to harrowing detail, and her tough-as-nails but soft-hearted detective. Lovers of traditional mysteries will appreciate the web of fierce loyalty tempered with fearful caution that links Jazz’s tiny but hardy support system—both at work and at home. Somehow or other, in each book, Amato manages to mix all the excitement of an action thriller with the swirling emotions of a mainstream psychological novel. STEELE RESOLVE "Don't think you're untouchable…you or your son." Then a dial tone... Home is no haven with that that kind of caller on the line. Shrewd, hardened New York homicide detective Jasmine (“Jazz) Steele’s just come back from a grisly crime scene involving the body of a brutally-beaten young girl, the second she's investigated this week. That was horrendous, but with these eight words, ending ominously in “your son,” Jazz’s immediate fear is for her nephew Chase, who’s already been through hell in his seven short years. In Kimberly Amato’s hard-boiled yet deeply emotional police procedural, no one is spared tough breaks and turbulent anguish. A lesser cop than Jazz would barely be able to cope. With a shadow on Chase and the aid of her friends’ grace-under-fire and brandy-fueled heart-to-hearts, Jazz--who has more 'tude than even the toughest investigator, male or female--navigates the cruel streets of New York City while struggling to keep custody of the only family she has left, doggedly in search of the elusive, psychopathic murderer who seems to be killing off women who look suspiciously like someone close to Jazz... and she's not willing to lose yet another person she loves. MELTING STEELE In Jasmine Steele’s heartbreaking new case, an entire family's been viciously murdered. Hard-boiled alert: author Kimberly Amato pulls no punches.The mother's throat was slit while trying to call for help and the father was shot in the chest, then gruesomely sliced up while still alive, like a scene from a horror film. Also found, the body of their young son, about Jazz’s son’s age, left in the closet with a snapped neck. But it's the remaining clues to a missing fourth victim--a teenage daughter named Kaley--that leave her reeling. Kaley's seemingly disappeared without a trace. Soon Jazz discovers that the family had plenty of disturbing skeletons in its closet. Skeletons possibly warranting hiring a hit man on the Internet… BREAKING STEELE Gory video game violence comes home to roost when two store managers are brutally murdered in the back room of their gaming shop just before peek holiday season. The corporation that owns the store is doing everything it can to keep the matter quiet—but they won’t succeed if detective Jasmine Steele cracks the case. Because said corporation has plenty of skeletons in its closet; and one of them is far too familiar to our heroine… Kimberly Amato serves up a heart-pounding, chilling addition to the Jasmine Steele hard-boiled mystery series—a fast-paced police procedur

Someone to Believe In


Kathryn Shay - 2005
    He put her in jail for harboring a teen offender and never looked back. Eleven years later, she’s a thorn in his side as an anti-gang specialist trying to get kids out of gangs. While Clay wants to put them in jail, Bailey is determined to help these troubled teenagers make good lives for themselves. But when Bailey and Clay are thrown together on the mayor’s task force, the impossible happens—they’re attracted to each other. Their passion erupts early on, and only grows stronger the further they get into a relationship. When they fall deeply in love, their conflicting views drive a wedge between them. Both the Street Angel and the Senator must find a way to deal with their differences in order to make a life together.

The DeLuca Furlough Brides: Book 1: The Ones They Left Behind (The DeLuca War Brides)


Alan Simon - 2017
    This is the story of two of those young women who became known as furlough brides.Much to the dismay of her haughty mother, nineteen-year-old Elizabeth Buchanan marries her high school sweetheart, Carlo DeLuca, during Carlo's brief furlough following Marine Corps boot camp before he departs for infantry training...and then the bloody islands of the Pacific Theater.One week later, Elizabeth's high school acquaintance Angela Antolini marries Carlo's older brother Tony while Tony is home on furlough following his U.S. Army basic training. As with Carlo - and their other two brothers - Tony will soon be off to war.Elizabeth and Angela - the DeLuca furlough brides - form a bond that carries them through the World War II homefront years. Both young women find jobs as government agency secretaries to help them cope with one lonely day after another. Katherine Buchanan, Elizabeth's meddling mother, refuses to accept her daughter's marriage to someone that Katherine considers to be beneath her daughter. Elizabeth's black market-dealing brother and father present her with even more problems, even as she worries day after day about Carlo's well-being.Come spend the war years with Elizabeth and Angela as they each struggle with the same monumental question:How can a wartime marriage survive years apart from each other, amidst constant fear and many other trials?

The Feathered Bone


Julie Cantrell - 2016
    They're soft. Delicate. But the secret thing about feathers is . . . they are very strong.” In the pre-Katrina glow of New Orleans, Amanda Salassi is anxious about chaperoning her daughter’s sixth grade field trip to the Big Easy during Halloween. And then her worst fears come true. Her daughter’s best friend, Sarah, disappears amid the magic and revelry—gone, without a trace.Unable to cope with her guilt, Amanda’s daughter sinks in depression. And Amanda’s husband turns destructive as he watches his family succumb to grief. Before long, Amanda’s whole world has collapsed.Amanda knows she has to save herself before it’s too late. As she continues to search for Sarah, she embarks on a personal journey, seeking hope and purpose in the wake of so much tragedy and loss.Set amidst the murky parishes of rural Louisiana and told through the eyes of two women who confront the darkest corners of humanity with quiet and unbreakable faith, The Feathered Bone is Julie Cantrell’s master portrait of love in a fallen world.

The Beekeeper of New York: From Yemen to the US, Yusra Khaldun must fight to save her brother.


Summer Luqman - 2019
    Now, not only must she come to terms with his secret world, but she must use what she learns to help save his life. Part Paulo Coelho, part Lee Child... The Beekeeper of New York twists from philosophical and mystical to a more earthy thriller as Yusra's quest to discover the truth and save her brother heats up. Yusra's earliest memory is from the vibrant marketplace in Al Hudaydah, when her autistic brother Someer is savagely beaten by a crowd who believe he is possessed by demons. Since that moment she has protected Someer and rejected gods and monsters, and all of the invisible forces that make people do cruel and unthinking things. But now Someer is lying unconscious in a New York hospital bed, and Yusra is discovering his secret, invisible world that she had never imagined possible. But can she come to terms with her discovery and put her trust in Someer in time to save his life? Slowly Yusra discovers that nobody in her life is exactly who she thought they were, and that help can arrive from the most unexpected places, if only she can develop a little faith.

A Lie Someone Told You about Yourself


Peter Ho Davies - 2021
    A first pregnancy is interrupted by test results at once catastrophic and uncertain. A second pregnancy ends in a fraught birth, a beloved child, the purgatory of further tests—and questions that reverberate down the years.   When does sorrow turn to shame? When does love become labor? When does chance become choice? When does a diagnosis become destiny? And when does fact become fiction?   This spare, graceful narrative chronicles the flux of parenthood, marriage, and the day-to-day practice of loving someone. As challenging as it is vulnerable, as furious as it is tender, as touching as it is darkly comic, Peter Ho Davies's new novel is an unprecedented depiction of fatherhood.

Peril Through The Panama: Book Two: The Cozy Cruise Mysteries


Lizzie Josephson - 2020
    

A Family Affair


Mary Campisi - 2006
    Her father has another family which includes a mistress and a daughter. Determined to uncover the truth behind her father's secret life, Christine heads to Magdalena, prepared to hate the people who have caused her to question everything she thought she knew about her father. But what she finds is a woman who understands her, a half sister who cherishes her, and a man who could love her if she'll let him. The longer she's around them, the more she questions which family is the real one. . . Attention Book Clubs! Included on my website is a Book Club Discussion Guide for A Family Affair. This story is filled with moral ambiguity, difficult choices, and second chances--all great topics for conversation and contemplation. Truth in Lies Series: Book One: A Family Affair Book Two: A Family Affair: Spring Book Three: A Family Affair: Summer Book Four: A Family Affair: Fall Book Five: A Family Affair: Christmas Book Six: A Family Affair: Winter (TBA) Book Seven: A Family Affair: The Promise (TBA)

The Fourth Child


Jessica Winter - 2021
    In the fall of 1991, as her children are growing older and more independent, Jane is overcome by a spiritual and intellectual restlessness that leads her to become involved with a local pro-life group. Following the tenets of her beliefs, she also adopts a little girl from Eastern Europe. But Mirela is a difficult child. Deprived of a loving caregiver in infancy, she remains unattached to her new parents, no matter how much love Jane shows her. As Jane becomes consumed with chasing therapies that might help Mirela, her relationships with her family, especially her older daughter, Lauren, begin to fray. Feeling estranged from her mother and unsettled in her new high school, Lauren begins to discover the power of her own burgeoning creativity and sexuality—a journey that both echoes and departs from her mother’s own adolescent experiences. But when Lauren is confronted with the limits of her youth and independence, Jane is thrown into an emotional crisis, forced to reconcile her principles and faith with her determination to keep her daughters safe. The Fourth Child is a piercing love story and a haunting portrayal of how love can shatter—or strengthen—our beliefs.

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls


Anton DiSclafani - 2013
    It is 1930, the midst of the Great Depression. After her mysterious role in a family tragedy, passionate, strong-willed Thea Atwell, age fifteen, has been cast out of her Florida home, exiled to an equestrienne boarding school for Southern debutantes. High in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with its complex social strata ordered by money, beauty, and girls’ friendships, the Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is a far remove from the free-roaming, dreamlike childhood Thea shared with her twin brother on their family’s citrus farm—a world now partially shattered. As Thea grapples with her responsibility for the events of the past year that led her here, she finds herself enmeshed in a new order, one that will change her sense of what is possible for herself, her family, her country.Weaving provocatively between home and school, the narrative powerfully unfurls the true story behind Thea’s expulsion from her family, but it isn’t long before the mystery of her past is rivaled by the question of how it will shape her future. Part scandalous love story, part heartbreaking family drama, The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls is an immersive, transporting page-turner—a vivid, propulsive novel about sex, love, family, money, class, home, and horses, all set against the ominous threat of the Depression—and the major debut of an important new writer.

The Publicist


Christina George - 2012
    The ego has landed.Can one woman change an age-old institution like publishing? Probably not, but Kate Mitchell sure wants to try. As a publicist with a large, respected New York publishing house, Kate finds herself at the mercy of a broken publishing system, books that don’t sell, and author egos that are often, well, as big as the island of Manhattan.Enter the star Editor, MacDermott Ellis: Tall, handsome, charismatic, married, and ready to save the day. Then there’s Allan Lavigne, once a revered author--now as forgotten as last year's bestsellers and his nephew Nick: Tall, gorgeous, sweet, single and ready to sweep Kate off her feet. Kate wants to do the right thing but her hormones seem to be driving her decisions. As Kate tries to navigate the landmine of publicity, over-the-top author expectations, and the careful dance of “I’m sorry, your book isn’t on the bestseller list this week,” she also finds authors who are painfully overlooked by a publisher wanting more sex, more celebrities, and more scandal.The story only an insider could tell.

Barbary Point


Alan Nayes - 2011
    Again. Kelly is twenty-eight and engaged to an older man who is quite wealthy. She’s happy, and only desires to make the trip back brief, sell her deceased father’s place, and return to her stable life in Los Angeles. However, while taking care of business in Oshkosh, Kelly meets a fishing guide, launching her on an emotional journey she never could have predicted or foreseen. BARBARY POINT is Kelly’s story of what happened that one magical week in May on the shores of Lake Winnebago when the ducklings hatch and the walleye run. Warning: Not your typical HEA! Alan Nayes is the author of the giant cat thriller, SMILODON, and the spellbinding sci-fi apocalyptic series, The Resurrection Trilogy (GARGOYLES, PLAGUE, RESURRECTION). ABOMINABLE is his most recent release.

Lights All Night Long


Lydia Fitzpatrick - 2019
    . . . One of the most propulsive, un-put-downable literary novels I've read in ages."--Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena Fifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: he's consumed by the fate of his older brother Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. The two have always been close, spending their days dreaming of escaping to America. But when Ilya was tapped for the exchange, Vladimir disappeared into their town's seedy, drug-plagued underworld. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women rocked the town's usual calm, and Vladimir found himself in prison.With the help of Sadie, who has secrets of her own, Ilya embarks on a mission to prove Vladimir's innocence. Piecing together the timeline of the murders and Vladimir's descent into addiction, Ilya discovers the radical lengths to which Vladimir has gone to protect him--a truth he could only have learned by leaving him behind. A rich tale of belonging and the pull of homes both native and adopted, Lights All Night Long is a spellbinding story of the fierce bond between brothers determined to find a way back to each other.

The Light Through the Leaves


Glendy Vanderah - 2021
    But when she returns, Viola is gone. A breaking point in an already fractured marriage, Viola’s abduction causes Ellis to disappear as well—into grief, guilt, and addiction. Convinced she can only do more harm to her family, Ellis leaves her husband and young sons, burying her desperate ache for her children deeper with every step into the mountain wildernesses she treks alone.In a remote area of Washington, a young girl named Raven keeps secrets inside, too. She must never speak to outsiders about how her mother makes miracles spring from the earth, or about her father, whose mysterious presence sometimes frightens her. Raven spends her days learning how to use her rare gifts—and more important, how to hide them. With each lesson comes a warning of what dangers lie in the world beyond her isolated haven. But despite her mother’s cautions, Raven finds herself longing for something more.As Ellis and Raven each confront their powerful longings, their journeys will converge in unexpected and hopeful ways, pulled together by the forces of nature, love, and family.