"Nothing makes me happier than finding that little-known or first-time author who really deserves to make it, and selling a boatload of their books -well, that and putting just the right books into each customer's hands.." jill
Sometimes I just fall into a novel and time slips by, and when I have to stop reading, I'm already looking forward to the next time I can pick the book up again. That's how it was with Ask Again, Yes. Set in the suburbs of NYC, the novel opens with two rookie cops, Francis and Brian, sharing their first beat and their hopes and dreams for a happy life.
Fast forward a few years and the men are neighbors, but men whose lives have diverged wildly. Behind closed doors, Francis' wife, Lena, is lonely in young motherhood. Brian's wife, Anne, is deeply disturbed. But the friendship of Francis' youngest daughter, Kate, and Brian's only child, Peter, cements the families together in ways no one could have predicted.
This novel resonates with tragedy, hope, sacrifice, and love. I hope you find yourself racing in to buy it, and home to enjoy every page.
This sequel to the Fourth Monkey is another grand page turner of a thriller.
Detective Sam Porter and his crew are back, chasing the elusive killer Anton Bishop. Poole and his FBI buddies are on the scene, too. But something is different. The four monkey’s m.o. seems to have changed.
Porter becomes so obsessed with finding Bishop that he is suspended from the force, whereupon he grabs a grainy photo and follows its clues from Chicago to New Orleans.
I wouldn’t recommend reading Fifth to Die unless you’ve read the Fourth Monkey. Frustratingly, Fifth to Die leaves us hanging and waiting for the third in the series, I finished this one ready to dive right into the next, but I fear it won’t be another year before that one hits the shelves.
Fantastically complex with compelling characters, J.D. Barker’s novels have me completely hooked.
Wowzer. Paul has been cheating on Rebecca. Rebecca has been cheating on Paul. Paul’s mistress is a nut job. Rebecca is addicted to the big- Pharma drugs she sells at work. Their acquaintances are obnoxious and entitled. Everybody lies. There is no one to like here. But then, why will you love this book?
Because it’s twisty and crazy and you just can’t look away.
In her most compelling and intricate book yet, Kristina Riggle has brought the heyday of Broadway to life in Vivian in Red.
Milo Short, the famed producer whose long career began as a lyricist in the 1930s, still goes to his office at Milo Short Productions every day. Until the day he stepped out of his Upper West Side brownstone and sees a vision - Vivian, a woman he hasn't seen in over 60 years, looking as she did when he last saw her in 1936, dressed to the nines and winking at him from across the street.
When Milo recovers, he finds he's had a stroke and lost the ability to speak or use his right hand. Now, suffering his visions of Vivian in silence, he's watched over by his family, and mostly by his granddaughter Eleanor, who is writing his biography.
As Eleanor digs into her beloved grandfather's past, she, too, discovers Vivian, and opens the door to secrets long buried.
I loved this story. I was immediately swept back to the '30s and the time of the great musicals, even as I was swept into Milo's story as a young man with talent and ambition who realizes his family's tailoring business just isn't for him.
We've sold so many of MI author Kristina Riggle's books over time, and she has tons of fans here. I can't wait to turn them all onto Vivian in Red, as I think it's her best book yet!
In the winters of 1976 and 1977, four children were abducted and murdered outside of Detroit. The author, J. Reuben Appelman, himself escaped an abduction attempt during that same time period, and even though he was only six at the time, the event fueled a lifelong obsession with what became known as the Oakland County Child Killer murders.
While this book is billed as a true-crime story for fans of podcasts like Serial, the way Appelman inserts his own history and mental health issues into the narrative creates a startling contrast to other true- crime books.
No one was ever arrested for the Detroit Killings, and according to Appelman the evidence was misrepresented to the public or mysteriously disappeared. But this doesn’t deter the author from calling out some of the biggest, most powerful men in the state and proposing a killer. Nor does he flinch from divulging an insidious and widespread child pornography business that stretched to Ann Arbor to northern Michigan and to both of America’s coasts.
This book is disturbing on many levels, but I suspect that folks who grew up during or after the time of the OCCK in Detroit will be devouring this true-crime book.
Silva’s new thriller opens at an exclusive private school in Switzerland, where a new student arrives and leaves each day in a motorcade. Her identity is strictly protected, but the speculation is that she is the daughter of a reviled Saudi prince, Khalid bin Mohammed.
Strangely, it’s Israel’s Gabriel Allon who is contacted when KBM’s daughter goes missing. Allon has spent a career fighting terrorists-many of them financed by Saudi Arabia. But the new crown prince is the most moderate the kingdom has ever known, and Gabriel sees an opportunity to gain ground in a tenuous partnership.
What ensues is a race to save the girl followed by a plot aiming to shift the balance of world power.
Daniel Silva fans will eat this one up.
Gabriel Allon and his Israeli cohorts are trying to exfiltrate an agent when everything goes wrong. And in discovering why their plan was foiled, they uncover the tip of an iceberg of Russian agents and get a whiff of a huge disaster: a very highly placed Russian mole within a western intelligence service. This brings Graham Seymore and Britain’s m16 into the game and it all gets much more convoluted and dangerous.
The Other Woman is classic Silva and I raced through it, both anxious to return to its pages and wishing it wouldn’t end. And, really, what more can you ask of fiction?
Paula McLain is the author of several historical fiction books, including The Paris Wife. In Love and Ruin, McLain explores the relationship between Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, journalist Martha Gellhorn.
While McLain is quick to point out that her books are fiction, she immerses herself in research beforehand and as a reader, you feel as if you are getting the real story, emotions and all.
Like all of Hemingway’s relationships, his marriage to Gellhorn was tumultuous. Martha was, more than any other of his wives, her own person and a professional in her own rite. She was a war correspondent and novelist, and her very independence challenged Hemingway’s sense of masculinity, even as he professed to love her for it.
McLain takes the reader right into the stormy war years with the famous couple. Her novel is very sure footed and is an informative and pleasurable read. It’s just right.
Nightmare! Sloane, Ardie, and Grace work as lowyers for Truviv, an athletic equipment company. For years, they've suffered under their department head Ames, who is now trying his sexual harassment game on the new hire. Worse, he's poised to become their new CEO. So, the women decide to sue. But when Ames turns up dead, they are the primes suspects. Whisper Network is obviously inspired by the #MeToo movement, but I have to say that I haven't felt this strength of solidarity with other women since the march in D.C. I closed this book with a resounding "Oh. Hell. Yes."
Alicia is a famous painter with a dream life in London-she lives in a gorgeous house with her renowned photographic husband, Gabriel.
And it was all going so well until the day Alicia shot Gabriel and then quit speaking- forever.
Now Alicia lives in a psychiatric facility and her new therapist, Theo Faber, is determined to find out why she is now the notorious Silent Patient.
This all sounds tame enough, as thrillers go, so let me tempt you with the idea that this debut will absolutely floor you with “I didn’t see that coming.” The rights have sold all over the world and film rights were scooped up by some heavy hitting studios and producers.
No further clues here- you have to read this one!