Skip to main content

Editorial Content for The Fall of Moscow Station

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Melanie Reynolds

What turns a faithful agent into a traitor? What motivates an Aldrich Ames or a Robert Hanssen to commit espionage against his own nation, to turn his back on democracy, to sell critical and sensitive information that costs the lives of other agents? Sometimes the motivation is just money. Occasionally, the traitor may actually believe in the other side’s system, or be disillusioned with America’s leaders and policies. Can any of these actually justify treason? Read More

Teaser

When a body with Russian military tattoos is found floating in a lake outside Berlin, the CIA immediately takes notice. The body is identified as the director of Russia’s Foundation for Advanced Nuclear Research, who is also a CIA asset. Alden Maines is jaded after years in the CIA cleaning up the messes of incompetent political appointees in dangerous foreign posts. When he is passed over for promotion, Maines crosses the Rubicon and decides to cash in as a double agent for Russia. But while Maines dreams of off-shore bank accounts and a new secret life, Arkady Lavrov of Russia’s intelligence service (GRU) has other plans.

Promo

When a body with Russian military tattoos is found floating in a lake outside Berlin, the CIA immediately takes notice. The body is identified as the director of Russia’s Foundation for Advanced Nuclear Research, who is also a CIA asset. Alden Maines is jaded after years in the CIA cleaning up the messes of incompetent political appointees in dangerous foreign posts. When he is passed over for promotion, Maines crosses the Rubicon and decides to cash in as a double agent for Russia. But while Maines dreams of off-shore bank accounts and a new secret life, Arkady Lavrov of Russia’s intelligence service (GRU) has other plans.

About the Book

When a body with Russian military tattoos is found floating in a lake outside Berlin, the CIA immediately takes notice. The body is identified as the director of Russia’s Foundation for Advanced Nuclear Research, who is also a CIA asset. And the murder coincides with the defection of one of the CIA’s upper-level officers.

Alden Maines is jaded after years in the CIA cleaning up the messes of incompetent political appointees in dangerous foreign posts. When he is passed over for promotion, Maines crosses the Rubicon and decides to cash in as a double agent for Russia.

But while Maines dreams of off-shore bank accounts and a new secret life, Arkady Lavrov of Russia’s intelligence service (GRU) has other plans. He immediately announces Maines’ defection to the world and then pumps him for every last ounce of intel, including the names of every agent in the CIA’s Moscow Station and their assets working in the Kremlin. But why would Lavrov burn an asset whose intel and access could pay dividends for years to come? What is Lavrov up to?

Traveling from Langley to Berlin and finally Moscow --- working black without backup --- analyst Jonathan Burke and agent Kyra Stryker are up against their most formidable enemy yet, and their lives and the fate of America’s most important assets in the New Cold War hang in the balance.

Audiobook available, narrated by Eric G. Dove

Editorial Content for A Midsummer's Equation

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

It has been too long since we last encountered Dr. Manabu Yukawa. The brainchild of prolific Japanese author Keigo Higashino, Yukawa is an eccentric physics professor who has acquired the nickname “Detective Galileo” for providing occasional and ofttimes reluctant assistance to law enforcement when a serious and baffling crime has occurred. To my knowledge, there have been five books published in the series to date, with the newly minted A MIDSUMMER’S EQUATION being the third to be seen in the United States thanks to the stalwart translation efforts of Alexander O. Read More

Teaser

Manabu Yukawa, the physicist known as "Detective Galileo," has traveled to Hari Cove, a once-popular summer resort town that has fallen on hard times. He is there to speak at a conference on a planned underwater mining operation, which has sharply divided the town. The night after the tense panel discussion, one of the resort's guests is found dead on the seashore at the base of the local cliffs. As the police try to uncover where Tsukahara was killed and why, Yukawa finds himself enmeshed in yet another confounding case of murder. In a series of twists, Galileo uncovers the hidden relationship behind the tragic events that led to this crime.

Promo

Manabu Yukawa, the physicist known as "Detective Galileo," has traveled to Hari Cove, a once-popular summer resort town that has fallen on hard times. He is there to speak at a conference on a planned underwater mining operation, which has sharply divided the town. The night after the tense panel discussion, one of the resort's guests is found dead on the seashore at the base of the local cliffs. As the police try to uncover where Tsukahara was killed and why, Yukawa finds himself enmeshed in yet another confounding case of murder. In a series of twists, Galileo uncovers the hidden relationship behind the tragic events that led to this crime.

About the Book

Manabu Yukawa, the physicist known as "Detective Galileo," has traveled to Hari Cove, a once-popular summer resort town that has fallen on hard times. He is there to speak at a conference on a planned underwater mining operation, which has sharply divided the town. One faction is against the proposed operation, concerned about the environmental impact on the area, known for its pristine waters. The other faction, seeing no future in the town as it is, believes its only hope lies in the development project.

The night after the tense panel discussion, one of the resort's guests is found dead on the seashore at the base of the local cliffs. The local police at first believe it was a simple accident --- that he wandered over the edge while walking on unfamiliar territory in the middle of the night. But when they discover that the victim was a former policeman and that the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, they begin to suspect he was murdered, and his body tossed off the cliff to misdirect the police.

As the police try to uncover where Tsukahara was killed and why, Yukawa finds himself enmeshed in yet another confounding case of murder. In a series of twists as complex and surprising as any in Higashino's brilliant, critically acclaimed work, Galileo uncovers the hidden relationship behind the tragic events that led to this murder.

Audiobook available, narrated by P.J. Ochlan

Editorial Content for All the Winters After

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Stephen Febick

Alaska doesn’t forgive mistakes,” it is written in Seré Prince Halverson’s ALL THE WINTERS AFTER. As we find, Alaska is a dangerous territory both physically and spiritually. It is home to desolation, long landscapes and those escaping society to seek something more. It makes for a fair second novel from Halverson, whose debut, THE UNDERSIDE OF JOY, was also fair enough but nothing extraordinary. Neither book goes above and beyond any form of storytelling, although each has a strong premise. Read More

Teaser

Alaska doesn't forgive mistakes. That's what Kachemak Winkel's mother used to tell him. A lot of mistakes were made that awful day 20 years ago, when she died in a plane crash with Kache's father and brother --- and Kache still feels responsible. He fled Alaska for good, but now his aunt Snag insists on his return. She admits she couldn't bring herself to check on his family's house in the woods --- not even once since he's been gone. Kache is sure the cabin has decayed into a pile of logs, but he finds smoke rising from the chimney and a mysterious Russian woman hiding from her own troubled past.

Promo

Alaska doesn't forgive mistakes. That's what Kachemak Winkel's mother used to tell him. A lot of mistakes were made that awful day 20 years ago, when she died in a plane crash with Kache's father and brother --- and Kache still feels responsible. He fled Alaska for good, but now his aunt Snag insists on his return. She admits she couldn't bring herself to check on his family's house in the woods --- not even once since he's been gone. Kache is sure the cabin has decayed into a pile of logs, but he finds smoke rising from the chimney and a mysterious Russian woman hiding from her own troubled past.

About the Book

Alaska doesn’t forgive mistakes.

That’s what Kachemak Winkel’s mother used to tell him. A lot of mistakes were made that awful day twenty years ago, when she died in a plane crash with Kache’s father and brother --- and Kache still feels responsible. He fled Alaska for good, but now his aunt Snag insists on his return. She admits she couldn’t bring herself to check on his family’s house in the woods --- not even once since he’s been gone.

Kache is sure the cabin has decayed into a pile of logs, but he finds smoke rising from the chimney and a mysterious Russian woman hiding from her own troubled past. Nadia has kept the house exactly the same --- a haunting museum of life before the crash. And she’s stayed there, afraid and utterly isolated, for 10 years.

Set in the majestic, dangerous beauty of Alaska, ALL THE WINTERS AFTER is the story of two bound souls trying to free themselves, searching for family and forgiveness.

Audiobook available, narrated by George Newbern

Editorial Content for The Immortals

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Sarah Rachel Egelman

What happens to gods and goddesses as their religions go extinct and they are forgotten or replaced by new deities? This is not a new question, not even a question unique in contemporary fiction. But in THE IMMORTALS, Jordanna Max Brodsky’s debut novel, it is explored in the always-dynamic setting of New York City as a series of grisly murders pull a classicist and a goddess together to solve the crimes. Read More

Teaser

The city sleeps. Selene DiSilva walks her dog along the banks of the Hudson. She is alone --- just the way she likes it. She doesn't believe in friends, and she doesn't speak to her family. Most of them are simply too dangerous. In the predawn calm, Selene finds the body of a young woman washed ashore, gruesomely mutilated and wreathed in laurel. Her ancient rage returns. And so does the memory of a promise she made long ago --- when her name was Artemis.

Promo

The city sleeps. Selene DiSilva walks her dog along the banks of the Hudson. She is alone --- just the way she likes it. She doesn't believe in friends, and she doesn't speak to her family. Most of them are simply too dangerous. In the predawn calm, Selene finds the body of a young woman washed ashore, gruesomely mutilated and wreathed in laurel. Her ancient rage returns. And so does the memory of a promise she made long ago --- when her name was Artemis.

About the Book

Manhattan has many secrets. Some are older than the city itself.

The city sleeps. Selene DiSilva walks her dog along the banks of the Hudson. She is alone --- just the way she likes it. She doesn't believe in friends, and she doesn't speak to her family. Most of them are simply too dangerous.

In the predawn calm, Selene finds the body of a young woman washed ashore, gruesomely mutilated and wreathed in laurel. Her ancient rage returns. And so does the memory of a promise she made long ago --- when her name was Artemis.

Audiobook available, narrated by Jordanna Max Brodsky and Robert Petkoff

Editorial Content for Ice Chest

Book

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

You can’t read a J.D. Rhoades novel without becoming a fan for life. His dark thrillers --- particularly those featuring troubled bounty hunter Jack Keller --- are all one-sit reads, full of action, twists and turns, and memorable characters. ICE CHEST, his latest novel, finds him eschewing the darker edges of his previous work in the thriller genre, offering instead a caper novel shot through with a somewhat lighter tone. I will leave it for others to decide if it’s his best book to date, but it’s certainly my personal favorite. Read More

Teaser

Clarissa Cartwright is about to take the stage wearing a fortune in jewels. In the wings, a motley crew of bumbling crooks is scheming to make off with the biggest heist of their careers: five and a half million dollars in precious stones. When the robbers find themselves pursued by both the intimidating ex-cop tasked with protecting the world’s most valuable piece of lingerie and Clarissa's insanely jealous and mobbed-up ex-boyfriend, things get ugly. Especially when Clarissa decides she's had quite enough of being an object and resolves to turn the tables on both the crooks and the fashion world.

Promo

Clarissa Cartwright is about to take the stage wearing a fortune in jewels. In the wings, a motley crew of bumbling crooks is scheming to make off with the biggest heist of their careers: five and a half million dollars in precious stones. When the robbers find themselves pursued by both the intimidating ex-cop tasked with protecting the world’s most valuable piece of lingerie and Clarissa's insanely jealous and mobbed-up ex-boyfriend, things get ugly. Especially when Clarissa decides she's had quite enough of being an object and resolves to turn the tables on both the crooks and the fashion world.

About the Book

A smart, sexy and hilarious heist novel about a crew of thieves who attempt to steal the world’s most valuable jewels from the world’s most valuable body.

Clarissa Cartwright, the planet's most famous beauty, is about to take the stage wearing a fortune in jewels, and not much else. In the wings, a motley crew of bumbling crooks is scheming to make off with the biggest heist of their careers: five and a half million dollars in precious stones, used to create the world's most expensive piece of lingerie. But mix the glitz and glamour of the highest of high fashion with a team of crooks that would have trouble stealing a sandwich from a deli, and all bets are off.

When the robbers find themselves pursued by both the intimidating ex-cop tasked with protecting the world’s most valuable piece of lingerie and Clarissa's insanely jealous and mobbed-up ex-boyfriend, things get ugly. Especially when Clarissa decides she's had quite enough of being an object and decides to turn the tables on both the crooks and the fashion world. ICE CHEST combines the page-turning skill of J.D. Rhoades' acclaimed Jack Keller thrillers with the excitement and humor of Ocean's Eleven.

Frederick W. Cropp

There is much in the world to make us afraid.  There is much more in our faith to make us unafraid.

Attribution

Frederick W. Cropp

Mona Awad, author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl: Fiction

Growing up in the suburban hell of Misery Saga (a.k.a. Mississauga), Lizzie has never liked the way she looks. She starts dating guys online but is afraid to send pictures, even when her skinny friend, China, does her makeup. So she starts to lose. With punishing drive, she counts almonds consumed, miles logged and pounds dropped. She grows up and gets thin, navigating double-edged validation from her mother, friends, husband and reflection in the mirror. But no matter how much she loses, will she ever see herself as anything other than a fat girl?

Joyce Maynard, author of Under the Influence

Drinking cost Helen her marriage and custody of her seven-year-old son, Ollie. Once an aspiring art photographer, she now makes ends meet taking portraits of school children and working for a caterer. Recovering from her addiction, she spends lonely evenings checking out profiles on an online dating site. When she meets wealthy philanthropists Ava and Swift Havilland, the vulnerable Helen is instantly enchanted. As she increasingly falls under their influence, Ava and Swift hold out the most seductive gift: their influence and help to regain custody of her son.

Debbie Macomber, author of A Girl's Guide to Moving On

Nichole is recovering from a broken heart after learning that her husband was having an affair and separating from him. The twist is that her mother-in-law, Leanne, is the one who told her that her son was cheating. Leanne has looked the other way for decades as her own husband cheated, and can’t bear to see her son repeating the same pattern. In telling Nichole, she also gathers the courage to leave her husband, and the two women rent apartments across the hall from each other, supporting one another in rebuilding their lives and embracing surprising new romantic endeavors.

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

February 2016

In 1945, World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia, and thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward freedom, almost all of them with something to hide. Among them are Joana, Emilia and Florian, whose paths converge en route to the ship that promises salvation, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the three find their strength, courage and trust in each other tested with each step closer toward safety. But just when it seems that freedom is within their grasp, tragedy strikes, and all 10,000 people aboard must fight for the same thing: survival.